Ontario to announce decision on extended shutdown in Peel, Toronto on Friday

Ontario’s health minister says the province is considering a request from Toronto and Peel Region to delay loosening restrictions in those communities for two weeks.

Christine Elliott says the province’s top doctor will be looking at new data that will inform his recommendation on what should be done for the two COVID-19 hot spots.

That recommendation will be made public on Friday.

The medical officers for Toronto and Peel wrote to Ontario’s chief medical officer of health recently, saying lifting a stay-at-home order and other restrictions next week as the province has planned would lead to more illness and death.

Dr. Eileen de Villa and Dr. Lawrence Loh asked for those pandemic measures to remain in place until at least March. 9.

They said they were concerned by the threat posed by more contagious variants of the virus and said hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are still too high.

Peel and Toronto are among four remaining Ontario regions that have yet to move from the stay-at-home order back to the province’s the colour-coded pandemic restrictions system.