If the Putting Workers First Act passes, all workers will have access to three paid sick days whether they have become ill with COVID-19, have to self-isolate and remain home because of close contact with the virus or who require the day off to get vaccinated.

The benefit will reimburse employers for what they pay employees up to $200 per employee per day for three days. The three days are retroactive to April 19 and will continue until September 25.

The provincial government also announced its intent to double payments Ontarians can receive from the federal sick days program. If approved, workers would receive a total of $1,000 per week for four weeks.

More about the Ontario COVID-19 Worker Income Protection Benefit can be found here.

As Ontario hospitals continue to grapple with the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the provincial government has temporarily adjusted an emergency order allowing for the relocation of some critical care patients.

This new measure will only be used in the event of a “surge event” at strained hospitals. The patients being relocated will only be done in the event a doctor is satisfied they are able to receive the appropriate level of care at the new facility and will not compromise patient health.

You can learn more about this measure here.

Section 22 Business Closures

Since the City of Toronto and Region of Peel have implemented new regulations under Section 22 that allow for business closures for businesses with more than five positive COVID cases within 14 days, nearly 20 companies have faced full or partial closures.

Peel Region Public Health has ordered partial closures at eight businesses, including two Amazon fulfillment centres, one shift at the Canada Post Gateway and a Canadian Tire Distribution Centre. In Toronto, Toronto Public Health has ordered four full and seven partial closures, including a McDonald’s restaurant in North York, a car dealership and a butcher shop.

The worst-case scenario modeling projections have become a reality and now Ontarians will remain at home even longer.

With daily cases projected to top 5,000 over the weekend, Premier Doug Ford is extending the stay-at-home order for two more weeks, effectively immediately. Ford is also closing all non-essential construction and prohibiting all outdoor gatherings except for members of a single household. Outdoor recreational activities — including golf courses, basketball courts, soccer fields and playgrounds — will also be closed, and all religious and funeral services will be capped at 10 people both indoors and outdoors. All stores that are permitted to have in-person shopping under the Emergency Brake designation, including grocery stores and pharmacies, will be limited to 25 per cent capacity effective 12:01 a.m. on Saturday.

The province is also temporarily enhancing bylaw and police officers’ authority for the duration of the stay-at-home order, granting them the ability to question people’s purpose of being outside of their residence, asking for their address and stopping drivers to inquire about where they are going.

Beginning Monday, checkpoints will be set up at all interprovincial borders to restrict travel for all purposes except for work, medical care, transportation of goods and exercising Indigenous Treaty rights. Ford continues to call on the federal government to close international borders, limit travel and address issues with testing and quarantining to travelers arriving at Pearson.

In what Labour Minister Monte McNaughton called a “last warning,” inspectors will be adding law offices, accounting firms and other businesses to increased workplace inspections to ensure all employees who are able to work from home are doing so.

Morbid Modeling
A modeling update provided by Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table today showed with “weak” public health measures, new case counts could reach more than 30,000 a day by June. With “moderate” measures, they are projected to range from 10,000 to 15,000 and with “strong” measures, such as a six-week stay-at-home order, they could be contained below 10,000 per day. ICU capacity is expected to exceed 800 patients in the next two weeks and continue increasing to more than 1,000.

Federal Support from the Canadian Red Cross
Addressing Canadians earlier today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ontario has reached out for more vaccination support and the federal government is standing by to deploy Canadian Red Cross mobile vaccination teams to the province, in addition to their continued help with needs in select long-term care and retirement homes across Ontario.

Premier Ford rejected this offer, with spokesperson Ivana Yelich saying, “While we appreciate the Prime Minister’s offer, unless it is matched with an increase in supply, we do not need the Red Cross at this time for the administration of vaccines in Ontario. We do not have a capacity issue, we have a supply issue.”

More Pfizer Doses
The federal government also announced that Canada has signed an agreement with Pfizer for eight million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines. With the new deal, four million additional doses will arrive in May, two million additional doses in June and two million additional doses in July. The total of eight million doses in May from Pfizer is roughly double than expected, and Pfizer is also moving an additional 400,000 doses from Q3 up for delivery in June. In May and June, two million doses of Pfizer will be coming into the country every week, with the total in June increasing for a total of 12 million doses spread over five weeks. From April-June, a total of 24 million doses will arrive from Pfizer alone.

Canada is expecting to receive 300,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson during the week of April 27, which will then be delivered to provinces at beginning of May. From AstraZeneca, Canada is expected to receive 4.1 million doses from the Serum Institute of India and United States by the end of June, with further deliveries in Q3.

Despite fluctuations from suppliers, including Moderna where challenges in ramping up production have resulted in reduced shipments and delays, between 48 million and 50 million doses of vaccines are expected in Canada by the end of June.

The full news release is here.

The new order takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, April 8, 2021. These measures will last for at least four weeks, on top of the measures that were introduced with the province-wide “emergency break” that came into effect last Saturday.

The following additional items will be introduced:

• All non-essential retail will only be permitted to operate for curbside and online shopping from the hours of 7 a.m. – 8 p.m.
• Big box stores will only be permitted to sell essential items and will be limited to 25% capacity.
• Residential evictions will be suspended.

You can read more here.

Vaccine projection and additional measures

Ford has estimated that Ontario will be able to administer the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines to 40% of the population by the end of this stay-at-home order.

To support this effort, the government is introducing mobile vaccination teams that will administer vaccines to individuals 18 years of age and older in high-risk congregate settings, residential buildings, faith-based locations and locations occupied by large employers in hot spot neighbourhoods.

Starting with the school break next week, education workers who provide direct daily support to students with special education needs across the province, and all education workers in high-risk neighbourhoods in Toronto and Peel, will be eligible for vaccination.

Premier Doug Ford said the government is pulling a province-wide “emergency brake” as a result of a surge in COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations.

Ontario pulling “emergency brake”

The emergency brake is a shutdown for all 34 health units in Ontario, to take effect on Saturday, April 3, 2021 at 12:01 a.m. and will last for four weeks.

The shutdown is not as extreme as public health officials recommended earlier Thursday — during an update on modelling and recommendations for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic this morning, they called for a full stay-at-home order to be initiated. However, Minister of Health Christine Elliott said that the province is not issuing a full stay-at-home order, but is encouraging people to limit trips outside of their homes to essential purposes only.

The shutdown measures include, but are not limited to:

• Prohibiting indoor organized public events and social gatherings and limiting the capacity for outdoor organized public events or social gatherings to a five-person maximum;
• Restricting in-person shopping in all retail settings, including a 50 per cent capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers’ markets, other stores that primarily sell food and pharmacies, and 25 per cent for all other retail including big box stores, along with other public health and workplace safety measures;
• Prohibiting personal care services;
• Prohibiting indoor and outdoor dining;
• Prohibiting the use of facilities for indoor or outdoor sports and recreational fitness (e.g., gyms);
• Requiring day camps to close; and,
• Limiting capacity at weddings, funerals, and religious services, rites or ceremonies to 15 per cent occupancy per room indoors, and to the number of individuals that can maintain two metres of physical distance outdoors.

More information can be found here.

Vaccine availability

The Ontario government is adding more than 350 pharmacies and more primary care settings across the province to the vaccine rollout. All of these locations will be offering the AstraZeneca vaccine to individuals aged 55 and over, with some locations to begin offering the vaccine Saturday, April 3, 2021.