'Unclear if businesses ordered to close last week will reopen on Jan 26': Ontario chief medical officer

“As soon as we have clarity, we want to inform the business community, so I can’t guarantee the 26th,” Dr. Kieran Moore said during a news conference. “We’ll be watching the same data as those experts at the science table and we collaborate with them to be able to inform public health measures.”

The government announced on Jan 3 that due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant driving up COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, schools would move online until at least Jan 17, and restrictions would be placed on businesses until at least Jan 26.

“Our public health measures have just been put in on the [Jan.] fifth, we should start to see the benefit of the sacrifices that Ontarians have made next week. Early in the week, we should be able to get clarity on where we’re at,” Moore said.

When asked by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce to provide more transparency about the metrics used by the province guiding the imposition or removal of public health restriction as businesses want to know when they could finally open, Moore said that the government intends to keep closures as short as possible and apologized to business owners for the hardship caused by the public health measures.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)