Provincial officials announced Monday that more areas of the province will be moving into the second stage of its reopening plan this Friday.
Premier Doug Ford said as of Friday, June 19, the following areas of the province will move into stage two:
Durham
Hamilton
York
Halton
Niagara
Haldimand-Norfolk
Sarnia-Lambton County
For regions in stage two, shopping malls can reopen, restaurants and bars can serve customers seated outdoors, barber shops, hair salons and tattoo parlors can operate, and swimming pools and campgrounds can reopen. (You can the province's full stage two plan at the bottom of this story.)
This news follows 24 other regions that were allowed to move into stage two last week, and leaves Toronto, Peel and Windsor-Essex as the sole parts of the province still in stage one.
Ford had a message for people who live in those regions, saying, "Please be patient, we can't let our guard down.
"We're hoping very shortly that we'll be able to open up the other regions," Ford said, adding that it would be "ideal" if those last three regions could be in phase two by June 26.
"I'd love to see it open by Friday," Ford said, but it "depends on the numbers."
Ontario on Monday reported 181 new cases of COVID-19 and that the number of patients in hospitals with the illness continues to decline, as the government gets set to announce which regions can move into the next phase of reopening.
The 0.6 per cent increase in total cases brings the cumulative total in Ontario to 32,370. Of those confirmed cases, slightly more than 84 per cent are resolved. Some 252 more cases were marked resolved on Sunday.
Nearly 70 per cent, or 126, of the additional cases are in the Toronto and Peel Region public health units. Twenty-eight of the province's 34 public health units reported five or fewer newly confirmed infections, with 18 reported no new cases at all.
Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, and Dr. Barbara Yaffe, associate chief medical officer of health, will also deliver a COVID-19 update at 3 p.m., which you can watch live at the top of this page.
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