Ontario blockade: Canada implements home stay order as officials warn of approaching health system “collapse”

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The new order will go into effect Thursday and will apply to Toronto and Ottawa. It is the second of its kind since the pandemic began.

“I was here last week and I told you that our province is in crisis,” Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford said during a news conference in Toronto on Tuesday. “The facts are clear: cases and deaths are the highest since the pandemic began and community outreach continues to increase.”

For at least four weeks, the Ontario government “will require everyone to stay home with exceptions for essential purposes, such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, accessing health care, exercising, or doing essential work, ”according to a statement provided to CNN.

All non-essential retail stores and meals have been closed in Ontario since Christmas Day and in Toronto since late November. Schools in Ontario’s points of interest, including Toronto and its suburbs, will not resume face-to-face learning until at least February 10th.

Sign urging customers to touch only items they intend to purchase at a Walmart store during the new coronavirus pandemic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on January 8, 2021.

“We need to change our mobility patterns, there are too many people who have too many contacts. The increase in contacts is the result of greater mobility,” said Christine Elliott, Ontario’s health minister. “So to break that cycle you have to stay home as long as possible and that starts with a stay-at-home order.”

Officials promised strict enforcement of the new restrictions and warned people violating the measures that they could be fined thousands of dollars and could face up to a year in prison.

Ontario ICUs are already approaching capacity

Covid-19’s second wave of Canada is now more widespread and severe than the first, with a seven-day national average of 8,100 new cases a day, a pandemic peak, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Ontario public health officials warned at a news conference Tuesday that one in four ICUs in Ontario was already full and that the hospital system was threatened with overflow.

Officials also said the Covid-19 variant in the UK could become the dominant variant in Ontario in less than two months if left unchecked. The variant is at least 56% more transmissible than the previous variants and, if allowed to spread, would mean that vaccines would not have a significant effect on mortality or morbidity, given the slow current implementation of the vaccine.
Trudeau warns of hard days because Canadian officials consider prolonged closure of Covid-19

Ontario has reported 14 cases of new variants in the province, but officials said the most worrying thing is the discovery of three cases this week unrelated to travel, which could indicate that the variant is already in the community and s ‘is spreading.

“Three of our cases have no history of travel,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, chief associate physician at Ontario. “If this is confirmed, we have evidence of community transmission and it is a very serious concern that the vaccine cannot be addressed quickly enough.”

Earlier Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government would buy an additional 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, adding that Canada would have at least 80 million doses of vaccine available in the fall. Canada currently also administers the Modern vaccine.

Trudeau reiterated his promise that all Canadians who wanted the vaccine would be vaccinated in September.

“We’re doing everything we can to advance more doses and speed up the process,” Trudeau said during a press conference from Ottawa on Tuesday. “Because we know that the sooner we vaccinate as many Canadians as possible, the sooner we go through this pandemic.”

CNN’s Elizabeth Hartfield contributed to this report.

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