Northern Ontario Will Now Be Kept In Lockdown For An Extra Two Weeks

Officials have announced that the Ontario lockdown will be extended for the seven public health regions in the north of the province.

Northern Ontario was supposed to have their lockdown end on January 11 — now, they'll stay shut down with southern Ontario until at least January 23.

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Trends show increasing transmission in many Northern Ontario public health regions. Province of Ontario

In a statement released on Thursday, the province also announced that in-person learning in southern Ontario will be suspended until January 25.

Elementary school students and secondary school students in northern Ontario will still return to school on Monday, January 11.

In the statement, the province said that they were seeing "concerning trends" in hospital and health system capacities.

"While extending the shutdown in Northern Ontario is not the news many wanted to hear, we must work together to stop the spread of COVID-19, protect hospital capacity, and save lives," said Ontario's Minister of Health Christine Elliott.

The province said that public health trends have worsened in the two weeks since northern Ontario was put into lockdown.

"The impacts of these time-limited measures throughout the province will be evaluated after 14 days to determine if it is safe to lift any restrictions or if they need to be extended," the province said.