TORONTO — The Canadian province of Ontario, the country’s most populous, will enter another lockdown on the weekend for 28 days, local media reported, as it grapples with rising COVID-19 cases and intensive care hospitalization rates.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), citing unnamed sources, said the province’s premier would announce the new lockdown measures on Thursday.
The new steps would still allow both essential and non-essential retailers to remain open, albeit with occupancy limits and schools would not be closed ahead of a spring break slated for April 12, the CBC said.
Ontario, which also enacted a month-long lockdown in late December, has seen more than 2,000 cases a day for seven straight days to Wednesday and a record number of patients in intensive care.
Canadian health authorities are wrestling with a rise in cases driven by the spread of virus variants. The country has had a total of 982,116 COVID-19 cases and 22,959 deaths.