Ontario plans to extend its state of emergency for another 21 days
UPDATE: The province officially extended its state of emergency, you can find the story here.
Ontario is planning on extending the province’s state of emergency amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to premier Doug Ford, the province is looking to extend it for 21 days, until June 2.
Ford said that on Thursday, he will be announcing more businesses that will be allowed to reopen.
The proposed extension will be presented on Tuesday afternoon at the legislature.
On April 14, the province’s state of emergency was extended by 28 days, and was in place until May 12.
At the time, the decision was based on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health and with the approval of the Ontario legislature.
“Until we see consistency for two weeks, we have to renew the state of emergency,” Premier Ford said on Monday. “Once we get through this, that will be taken off the table.”
Ford also said that “hopefully, we’ll be able to see that sooner than later.”
The state of emergency in the province was first issued on March 17.
“Within eight weeks, we have come a long way,” said Ford. “But we still have a long way to go.”
The province has begun to reopen parts of the economy as of Monday.
As of May 11, retail stores reopened for curbside pick-up and delivery, in an effort to get “thousands” of people back to work, Ford said last week when he made the announcement.
The province is also expanding essential construction to allow below-grade multi-unit residential construction projects like apartments and condominiums to begin and existing above-grade projects to continue in order to “keep adding more houses and add more jobs” — also reopened Monday.
And, provincial parks and conservation reserves reopened on Monday, for limited day-use access.
The province’s total is now 20,907 but 73.6% of the cases have been resolved, with 15,391 patients recovered.
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