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London area moving out of COVID-19 shutdown Feb. 16

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The London area could be assigned to the orange or red level when it transitions back to the province’s colour-coded COVID-19 restriction system next week, the city’s top doctor says, as Queen’s Park gradually loosens restrictions in some regions.

Twenty-eight public health areas, including the Middlesex-London Health Unit and other area health units, are set to return to the tiered restriction guidelines on Feb. 16 when the province lifts its stay-at-home order in those regions.

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“We’re likely headed to orange or red, depending on how case counts are looking,” medical officer of health Chris Mackie said Monday.

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“Hopefully we can continue to see cases trend downward.”

The province’s restriction guidelines, released last fall, have five levels. Green-prevent is the lowest category, followed by yellow-protect, orange-restrict, red-control and finally grey-lockdown.

Mackie said he spoke with provincial public health officials Monday about where London will rank when it returns to the colour-coded system and expects to discuss the situation with the province again later this week.

“It’s really about what the data (are) looking like. At the end of the day, the cabinet will decide what level the Middlesex-London Health Unit will move into,” Mackie said.

Premier Doug Ford announced Monday three health units in eastern Ontario will move to green-prevent beginning Wednesday.

COVID-19 hot spots of Toronto and Peel and York regions will remain under the stay-at-home order, without a colour-coded restriction level, until at least Feb. 22.

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The province also announced Monday it is allowing the state of emergency declared Jan. 12 to expire as scheduled on Tuesday.

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“We can’t return to normal, not yet,” Ford said Monday. “But we can transition out of the provincewide shutdown.”

The province is changing the rules for grey-lockdown to allow previously closed non-essential retailers to reopen to capacity limits of 25 per cent.

Queen’s Park will also have an “emergency brake” in place to allow the government to quickly move a region into lockdown if it experiences a rapid increase in cases or if its health system becomes overwhelmed.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said the measure is meant to help deal with the risk posed by new variants of COVID-19.

“This is not a reopening or a return to normal,” she said of the changes announced Monday. “It’s an acknowledgement that we are making steady progress.”

London area daily case counts are down significantly from the peak of the second wave in early January, when the single-day total often reached triple digits.

Daily totals have hovered well below 50 in London and Middlesex County for more than two weeks. The Middlesex-London Health Unit reported 20 new cases Monday and no additional deaths.

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If London and Middlesex were moved to orange-restrict, gyms and indoor dining could be open with a 50-person limit, among other regulations. A red-control designation would limit indoor dining, gym and fitness studio capacity to 10 people.

In both levels, salons and spas can open but are barred from performing services that require a client to remove their mask. Funerals, weddings and church services are allowed in both levels at 30 per cent capacity.

The decision to place a region in a specific restriction level is based on health criteria including the weekly case rate per 100,000 population, hospital capacity, number and severity of outbreaks, and effective reproduction number, the average number of people a positive person infects.

The London area was placed in red-control Dec. 14, just before all of Ontario was placed under a shutdown that began Boxing Day. At the time, case counts in the London area were increasing, breaking the daily case record nine times in December alone.

While cases have since declined provincewide from the December and January highs, public health officials have said the spread of more contagious variants of COVID-19 is a concern.

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Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, David Williams, has said he would like to see the province’s daily cases drop below 1,000 and the number of patients with COVID-19 in hospital intensive-care units below 150 before lifting restrictions further.

On Monday, Williams urged residents to remain cautious and follow public health rules.

“That number is not down yet where we need it to be to step back from the brink,” he said of the province’s cases. “Some ICUs are still having challenges and moving people (to out-of-town hospitals that have more capacity).”

London Health Sciences Centre has taken in four critically ill COVID-19 patients from overcrowded hospitals in other parts of Ontario to date, chief medical officer Adam Dukelow said Monday.

The first patient was transferred from an intensive-care unit in the Greater Toronto Area nearly two weeks ago. The most recent critical care COVID-19 patient arrived the middle of last week.

As of Monday, LHSC had 22 COVID-19 patients, including eight in intensive care.

“Our hospital capacity remains stable and in good shape due to a lot of the efforts within the walls of our hospital, but also in our community,” Dukelow said.

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jbieman@postmedia.com

BY THE COLOURS: COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS

How Ontario’s colour-coded, tiered system applies:

Grey-lockdown: Restaurants are takeout only, indoor social gatherings are banned and outdoor ones are capped at 10 people. Reversing an existing ban in in-person shopping at non-essential retail, Ontario is now allowing most stores to operate at 25 per cent capacity.

Red-control: Restaurants and gyms can open with a 10-person capacity and social gatherings are capped at five indoors and 25 outdoors. Spas and salons can stay open but can’t offer services that require a person to remove their face mask.

Orange-restrict: Maximum of 50 people allowed indoors at gyms and restaurants, which can only seat four to a table. Restaurants and bars can only stay open until 10 p.m.

Yellow-protect: Social gatherings are capped at 10 indoors and 25 outdoors. Seating is limited to six per table at restaurants, which are forced to close at midnight.

Green-prevent: Social gatherings are capped at 10 indoors and 25 outdoors. No early closing for bars or restaurants. Cinemas, casinos and performing arts centres can open with 50 people indoors.

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Posted by The London Free Press on Tuesday, February 9, 2021
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