TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Ontario will enter a limited lockdown for 28 days on Saturday, as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise and more dangerous virus variants take hold, the premier said on Thursday.
The lockdown for Canada’s most populous province will fall short of enacting a stay-at-home order, which new government modeling released earlier on Thursday suggested would be necessary to avoid a doubling to some 6,000 new COVID-19 cases per day by late April.
Ontario’s third lockdown since the pandemic began will shutter all indoor and outdoor dining, although retailers will remain open with capacity limits, Premier Doug Ford said, calling the measures “pulling the emergency brake” on the entire province.
“We’re now fighting a new enemy,” Ford said. “The new variants are far more dangerous than before. They spread faster and they do more harm than the virus we were fighting last year... That means we need to take action now.”
Schools would remain open, Ontario’s education minister said on Twitter. ...
