Ontario Has No Plans to Scrap Mask Mandate and Vaccine Passports

Health Minister Christine Elliott says the Province will not commit to a time frame for ending vaccine passports and the mask mandate.

ONTARIO - Ontario does not have any plans to remove vaccine passports or the mask mandate.

Alberta announced this morning they were getting rid of the vaccine passport system. Currently the plan for Ontario is to eliminate all restrictions accept for the mask mandate and the vaccine passport on March 14. 

Health Minister Christine Elliott was asked today if they would follow suit. 

"That is something we continue to monitor on a daily basis, looking at what is happening in the community as we know it, looking at the statistics on the number of people hospitalized. We are willing to change if necessary, based on the evidence and based on what we see and the recommendations from Dr. Moore and his colleagues." 

Elliott says we will have to live with the mask mandate for some time. 

"The trends are going in a good direction right now but we can't sit back on our laurels and assume that is always going to continue. Omicron is highly transmissible, we have the variant the BA2 in some parts of Ontario as well and well it doesn't appear as if it is going to be a more dangerous variant that Omicron, but it appears it will be more transmissible. We are not telling the people in Ontario that this is going to remain in place forever, but we are not in the clear  just yet and we need to continue to protect Ontarians and protect each other with the passports and with the masks at this point." 

The next stage of reopening in Ontario is happening on February 21 and will include the following: 

- Increasing social gathering limits to 25 people indoors and 100 people outdoors.
- Removing capacity limits in indoor public settings where proof of vaccination is required, including but not limited to restaurants, indoor sports and recreational facilities, cinemas, as well as other settings that choose to opt-in to proof of vaccination requirements.
- Permitting spectator capacity at sporting events, concert venues, and theatres at 50 per cent capacity.
- Limiting capacity in most remaining indoor public settings where proof of vaccination is not required to the number of people that can maintain two metres of physical distance.
- Indoor religious services, rites or ceremonies limited to the number that can maintain two metres of physical distance, with no limit if proof of vaccination is required.
- Increasing indoor capacity limits to 25 per cent in the remaining higher-risk settings where proof of vaccination is required, including nightclubs, wedding receptions in meeting or event spaces where there is dancing, as well as bathhouses and sex clubs.