TORONTO – Ontario is lifting most COVID-19 restrictions on Thursday.
By March 1, the requirement to show a vaccination passport will be lifted in all settings. However, mask mandates will remain in place for the time being.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the ramping up of the removal of restrictions, including increasing indoor social gathering limits to 50 indoors and 100 people outdoors. Capacity limits are also being removed at restaurants and bars, gyms, cinemas, meeting and event spaces, casinos and bingo halls and indoor areas of settings that chose to opt in to proof of vaccination requirements.
Sports arenas and concert venues will be allowed to have 50 per cent capacity in the stands. Those limits will be lifted completely on March 1.
Starting Friday, the province is also extending booster doses
“I think we’re going in the right direction,” Ford said.
The move was made based on science, said the province’s chief medical officer of health.
“We are now down the slope from the peak of Omicron activity … We have the level of protection that we need to remove public health measures and have made tremendous strides to reduce the risk,” said Dr. Kieran Moore.
“As a result, we no longer need the proof of vaccination. It served its purpose.”
Businesses may continue to require proof of vaccination.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, in a release, accused Ford of "caving" to anti-vaccination protesters in Ottawa.
“We want Ontario to be fully open when it’s safe, and to stay that way, including restaurants and gyms, and especially schools. Vaccine certificates are helping keep everything open and protecting us all,” Horwath said.
“Ending vaccine certificates is risky, and scary — for seniors, parents whose little ones are too young to get the shot and everyday folks who want to know that the person on the treadmill next to them at the gym or eating across from them at the diner are vaccinated.”
Ford countered that the moves aren't being made because of the Ottawa protests or a now-ended one at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, but "despite" them.
