Restaurants, bars and gyms in Ottawa will be allowed to reopen this weekend as the city emerges from four weeks under modified Stage 2 pandemic restrictions, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced Tuesday.
Ottawa and the neighbouring Eastern Ontario Health Unit (EOHU) are now graded orange, according a new colour-coded provincial pandemic scale.
That means a return to rules similar to those in place from mid-July until mid-October: indoor dining can resume at Ottawa restaurants, but certain restrictions, such as limited seating capacity and a 10 p.m. closing time, will remain in place. Gyms, movie theatres and performing arts venues will also be allowed to reopen under certain restrictions.
Private gatherings of up to 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors can resume, as can supervised public events of up to 50 indoors and 100 outdoors.
The other four eastern Ontario health units are green.
The modified Stage 2 closures in effect in Ottawa, Toronto and Peel region came into effect Oct. 10. York Region later faced similar restrictions. With the exception of Toronto, which will wait until the weekend of Nov. 14, those regions will now move to orange.
28 new cases in Ottawa
The capital is reporting just 28 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, less than three percent of the 1,050 new cases reported across Ontario — a one-day pandemic record for the province.
The majority, about 80 per cent, are in the Toronto area.
Ottawa Public Health (OPH) has declared 58 more cases as resolved and is reporting two more deaths. About two-thirds of Ottawa’s latest cases are people over 40, including eight over 80.
