Ford Releases Official Details of Ontario's Third Lockdown

Thursday, 1 April 2021 14:11

The Province has released official details of the third Lockdown that will start on Saturday.

ONTARIO - It's official, Ontario is activating the "emergency brake" and moving all 34 public health units to grey lockdown starting on Saturday at 12:01 am.

The grey lockdown measures will include the following:

- Prohibiting indoor organized public events and social gatherings and limiting the capacity for outdoor organized public events or social gatherings to a 5-person maximum, except for gatherings with members of the same household (the people you live with) or gatherings of members of one household and one other person from another household who lives alone.

- Restricting in-person shopping in all retail settings, including a 50 per cent capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers' markets, other stores that primarily sell food and pharmacies, and 25 per cent for all other retail including big box stores, along with other public health and workplace safety measures;

- Prohibiting personal care services;

- Prohibiting indoor and outdoor dining. Restaurants, bars and other food or drink establishments will be permitted to operate by take-out, drive-through, and delivery only;

- Prohibiting the use of facilities for indoor or outdoor sports and recreational fitness (e.g., gyms) with very limited exceptions;

- Requiring day camps to close; and,

- Limiting capacity at weddings, funerals, and religious services, rites or ceremonies to 15 per cent occupancy per room indoors, and to the number of individuals that can maintain two metres of physical distance outdoors.

They will allow indoor religious services at 15% capacity and schools will stay open. Everyone is being asked to limit trips and employers are being told to make every effort to allow employees to work from home. Retail locations will be allowed to stay open at 25% capacity, grocery stores and pharmacies will be allowed to operate at 50% capacity.

Premier Doug Ford says this was a not a decision he wanted to make but it was a decision he had to make.

"We are facing a serious situation and drastic measures are required to contain the rapid spread of the virus, especially the new variants of concern. I know pulling the emergency brake will be difficult on many people across the province, but we must try and prevent more people from getting infected and overwhelming our hospitals. Our vaccine rollout is steadily increasing, and I encourage everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated. That is our best protection against this deadly virus."

Ford did say we are taking these steps now, so we can hopefully open things up and enjoy the summer. Ontario has the toughest restrictions in all of North America right now. The Province has not issued a Stay at Home order and the restrictions are not as stringent as they were in the 2nd lockdown that started on Boxing Day.

You can read all of the restrictions in grey lockdown online here.

You can listen to Premier Ford's remarks below: