It’s a good news-bad news kind of day for Ontario.
The good news is if all goes well, mask mandates in Ontario will no longer be a thing by the end of March.
In his Thursday update Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Keiran Moore reinforced Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott’s plans for the mandate.
“I do agree with the Premier and the Minister that because the trends look so good that we can anticipate if the trends continue removing mandatory masks by the end of March,” Dr. Moore said.
However, he also confirmed that a new threat, the BA.2 COVID-19 variant is likely to become the dominant strain of the virus in the province by Mid-March because it is more transmissible. Moore says the BA.2 variant appears to be almost 30 percent more transmissible than the currently dominant Omicron variant.
***With files from Mo Fahim