Ontario begins lockdown: schools, gyms, indoor dining closed again

All schools in Canada’s most populous province will be shut down and move to online learning because of a record number of coronavirus infections fueled by the omicron variant, Ontario’s premier announced Monday.

Premier Doug Ford also announced the closure of indoor dining. Gyms and cinemas will also close and hospitals have also been told to pause all non-urgent surgeries

Ontario is seeing record new infections and there are concerns about hospital capacity.

“I know online learning is not ideal,” Ford said. “The fact is omicron spreads like wildfire.”

The reopening of schools has been delayed until at least Jan. 17. Just last week, the government announced schools would open on Wednesday.

Schools shut down for in class learning last April because of record cases driven by the delta variant. They had since resumed in class learning.- READ MORE