Ontario’s declaration of emergency extended until June 2

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Published May 12, 2020 at 6:38 pm

dougford

At a May 12 press conference, Ontario Premier Doug Ford discussed additional measures to help cope with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, with an announcement that the Ontario government will be extending the declaration of emergency until June 2, 2020.

Today’s announcement was made by Premier Doug Ford, Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance, Rod Phillips.

The declaration will allow Ontario to continue to enforce current emergency orders, including restricting retirement and long-term care home employees from working in more than one facility.

It will also prohibit events and gatherings of more than five people.

Since the emergency was first declared on March 17, the government has taken more than 150 actions to help protect individuals, families, and businesses from the impacts of COVID-19.

This extension will continue enforcing important public health measures across Ontario.

“While we’ve made significant progress, we still have a long way to go, but we also have many reasons to be hopeful,” said Ford.

“We’re making steady progress. On Sunday, we saw the lowest daily number of new cases since March 31.”

According to Ford’s announcement, Ontario’s hospitals have also added over 5,000 acute care beds and have continued ramping up testing.

“If we stay on course, we will soon be ready to take the next step and now is the time to prepare,” added Ford.

Today’s announcement also stated that the province is seeking input from business owners and job creators in order to inform them about the next steps and barriers required to ensure they can succeed in this new environment.

“We now have over 80 workplace safety guidelines to help our employers keep their staff and customers safe, we’re building a solid foundation for the cautious reopening of our province, we’re charting a path to a strong recovery with the progress we’ve made,” said Ford.

“I’m confident we can move forward,” he said, adding that Thursday’s (May 14) announcement will bring more good news.

“On Thursday we will share more good news; more good news about getting people back to work, more good news about opening workplaces and getting paychecks out the door, more good news about slowly getting back to normal,” he said.

According to Ford, the announcement coming on May 14 will share additional details about the next stage of reopening the province and will provide additional details on the reopening of more low-risk workplaces, seasonal businesses and essential services.

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