Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health to provide a COVID-19 update amid rising cases

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health is set to provide a COVID-19 update on Tuesday afternoon amid rising cases.

Dr. Kieran Moore will lead the COVID-19 update at 3 pm. This will be in addition to his usual weekly COVID-19 update held on Thursday afternoons.

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The update comes as Ontario sits above 1,000 daily COVID-19 cases for the last seven days in a row. Ontario reported 1,429 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday and five new deaths. The seven day rolling average is 1,400.

The Omicron variant is also quickly taking over Delta in the province. According to Ontario’s Science Table, as of Monday, 30.8% of COVID-19 cases in the province were Omicron. Their COVID-19 dashboard suggests that the Omicron variant is doubling every three days.

Local public health units in the province have been reintroducing stricter COVID-19 measures in recent weeks as cases surge. Peterborough, Kingston, London and Waterloo have all imposed additional measures as the virus has taken hold in those regions.

The announcement comes as many call upon the provincial government to provide more rapid tests to the general population. As it stands, Ontario will be sending home five rapid test kits with all students at publicly funded schools.

There will also be a holiday testing blitz with rapid antigen test pop-ups in high-traffic areas such as malls, retail centres and holiday markets.