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Ford will not punish entire province; expanding social bubbles not allowed until numbers come down

Premier Doug Ford says he is not going to punish an entire province for the actions of a few.  During his daily briefing Ford was asked if he will consider rolling back the entire province because of the thousands of people who gathered at a Toronto park and for the most part ignored public health measures. He said he was surprised at the actions of the people in Trinity-Bellwood park and wants them all to get tested for COVID-19, “First of all I am disappointed, to say the least with everyone who turned up at Trinity Bellwood, I would ask them to do us all a favour and go and get tested.  I am not going to punish an entire province for the actions of a few.  Two tiers of opening up the province doesn’t make sense.  You get the odd group that misbehaves and you can’t blame the entire city of Toronto.  99.9-percent of the city has been incredible.”

Health Minister Christine Elliott says the higher number of new cases the province is seeing relates back to the week before, blaming people who gathered in larger groups for Mother’s Day events.   Elliott says she expects the numbers later this week will start to show what the effects have been of reopening the economy.  She said herself and the Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams will be watching the numbers very carefully and either take action or not take action, “We have to make sure that we do this responsibly.  Please, everyone, maintain that social distancing, it is still vitally important.”

Elliot said that the decision to increase gatherings and allowing “social cohorting” where people can expand their social group is not going to be made anytime soon.  She was very clear that Dr. Williams is hesitant to allow that right away with the number of cases still high.  She said it is in the future but it will be down the road.

Ford also says more testing will be done in “hotspots” of increasing new cases of COVID-19.  He says some areas are lighting up including parts of Peel Region, parts, not all of Toronto, and Windsor-Essex.  He says large employers and workplaces with big groups of employees will be tested.  Ford said there would be a robust public education campaign in the next few days.

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