With Sudbury's mayor renewing a call for a Northern Ontario bubble, Ontario's top doctors addressed the topic today.
Ontario is currently in a state of emergency and a stay-at-home order has been issued. Both are expected to be in place until at least the middle of this month.
In January, Northern Ontario mayors weighed in on the idea of a regional bubble to help further curb the spread of COVID-19 by preventing people from higher-risk areas travelling north. Sudbury Mayor Brian Bigger has reiterated the call for a bubble and said he'd be reaching out to the province this week to push for a bubble.
Today in a news conference, Ontario's chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams and associate medical officer of health Dr. Barbara Yaffe said they had not seen the request, noting that doesn't mean one hasn't been made.
“We have yet not put in place intra-provincial restrictions except to ask people if you don’t need to go out and go to other places except for essential reasons then stay at home,” said Williams.
He noted some mayors and leaders in Northern Ontario are still concerned about travel.
"Some have been concerned and that’s why we’ve had limitations on aspects related to ski resorts ‘cause that brings people from the southern areas up to the northern ones to go there and we’ve held that in abeyance to try and limit that,” he said.
New COVID-19 variants are in Ontario.
Public Health Ontario has confirmed 69 cases of the UK strain of the virus, and today it was announced the South African strain has also been confirmed in Peel Region.
While the overall number of cases in the province is going down, Yaffe said the variants are an issue of concern. The strains, she said, are more infectious and spread more quickly.
“I don’t know that implementing a travel border within the province is going to actually accomplish much. We need to keep pushing about people to follow the current public health measures, stay at home,” said Yaffe.
