Ontario extends stay-at-home order to June 2 as COVID-19 cases trend down

By Moira Warburton

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ontario will extend its stay-at-home order for an additional two weeks to June 2, as COVID-19 cases finally begin to trend downwards in one of Canada's hardest hit provinces, Premier Doug Ford said on Thursday.

Hospitals in Canada's most populous province were close to being overwhelmed in the latest pandemic wave due to a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by more easily transmitted coronavirus variants and a reopening that many health experts said happened too soon.

Ford said that children ages 12 to 15 and their families will be able to book vaccine appointments as of May 31, although he did not say when schools in the province would return to in-person learning.

"We need public health doctors, teachers and labour to agree on the best path forward and we also need consensus. We simply don't have that now," Ford said at a briefing in Toronto.

Ontario imposed a stay-at-home order on April 8 to contain the punishing third wave. On Wednesday, it reported 2,759 new cases, down from a seven-day average of 4,370 in April.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Toronto; Editing by Bill Berkrot)