Province expected to go on lockdown
We can expect to see the entire province locked down as of Thursday..
Premier Doug Ford is to hold a news conference at 1 this afternoon, at which time he’s expected to announce tough new restrictions to try to stem the spread of COVID-19.
Reports say the lockdown will be similar to measures implemented last spring, closing all but essential stores.
It will reportedly last four weeks south of Sudbury, north of that, it will run for two weeks.
The school break will also be extended to January 11th for elementary students, and to four weeks for those in high school.
The announcement comes after Ford and his cabinet spent the weekend in emergency meetings with medical experts.
The latest modelling data shows that the number of people being treated for the coronavirus in intensive care would increase to 300 by the end of this month, and to 700 by the end of January.
Those levels are not possible for the health care system to sustain.
A look at the latest numbers
The announcement comes after the sixth day in a row with more than two-thousand COVID-19 cases reported in our province.
Another 23-hundred and 16 new diagnoses were reported yesterday, with the majority of new infections coming from the greater Toronto area.
Another 25 deaths were also recorded, increasing the toll to 41-hundred and 50.
There are now 875 people in hospital….261 of them in intensive care.
Across Canada, there have now been more than 500-thousand cases of COVID-19.
More than 14-thousand people have died.
A look at the numbers locally
Algoma Public Health has resolved all its cases of COVID-19.
Public Health Sudbury & Districts has two new cases, one in Greater Sudbury, the other outside of the city in the district.
Both are said to be travel-related and both are in self-isolation.
That makes a total of 10 active cases for the Sudbury region, which enters the green zone today.
The agency is advising the public of potential low-risk exposure to COVID-19 for anyone who travelled on Ontario Northland bus #5502 on Tuesday, December 15, 2020.
This Ontario Northland bus service departed Toronto at 2 p.m. and had a scheduled arrival time in Sudbury at 7:15 p.m.
New strain in the U.K.
Canada and several other countries are now banning travellers from the United Kingdom after that country reported uncovering a new strain of COVID-19.
It’s said to be 70 percent more infectious than the current version.
But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says there’s no evidence the new variant is more lethal or causes more severe illness in those infected.
The new strain has been found, largely, in London and southeast Britain.
Those areas entered a newly-created Tier Four level of restrictions yesterday.