Mask requirements will be lifted by the end of March in Ontario provided encouraging public health trends continue, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore said.
Moore said the province can’t mandate mask wearing forever as COVID-19 risks decline.
He pointed out that Ontario has a very high vaccination rate and hospitalizations have gone down and said he believes the worst is over for the province.
However, he said that due to limited access to PCR testing, the true number of new daily COVID-19 cases can be estimated by multiplying the number of positive tests by 10, which means there could be having had more than 22,000 new cases on Thursday.
Moore also said guidelines for the Ontario Public Service and colleges and universities to require unvaccinated employees to undergo regular testing have been rescinded. He said he is looking more broadly at guidelines for health care and education.
Ontario reported Thursday a total of 834 people hospitalized with COVID-19 and 267 patients in intensive care.
This is a drop of 13 hospitalizations and 11 intensive care patients from Wednesday.
The province also recorded 17 new deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday.
About 10% of long-term care facilities in Ontario have active outbreaks of COVID-19.
Ontario does not report data on COVID-19 cases in schools, but two schools were closed Wednesday for operational reasons.
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