COVID-19: Ontario reports 3,887 new cases

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Premier Doug Ford repeated calls Friday for the federal government to tighten the country’s borders to keep out virus variants that originated outside Canada, but Windsor’s business community is asking for an increase in land border business travel.

“We’re not asking that restrictions be removed for everyone, but I think there is definitely a need for business people to travel because it’s hurting business big time,” said Rakesh Naidu, president and CEO of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce.

“A lot of businesses are not able to continue and offer support for the business they have. Also, the future business prospects are very bleak if this continues the way it is.”

Ford said if he had the power, he would close Pearson International airport immediately and limit land border crossing to essential trips.

Naidu said “from the chamber’s perspective we would like to have further reopening or easing of restrictions on business travellers, by using technology, by additional use of testing, tracing and tracking.“

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Ford railed against the phenomenon of people travelling to Canada from the U.S. by flying to northern New York, then hiring a taxi or renting a car to drive to the border before driving or walking across.

All travellers entering Canada must quarantine for 14 days whether they arrive by plane or at a land border. However, only those who arrive by air are required to spend three days of their quarantine period at a government-approved isolation hotel.

Ford said the land border rules were full of “massive loopholes” and said there should be hotel quarantines required for people arriving by land at major border crossings, too.

“People are exploiting the weak measures at our land border to get around the hotel quarantine.”

The premier has been in self-isolation after coming into close contact last week with a staffer who tested positive for COVID-19.

Health Minister Christine Elliott and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones requested tighter borders in a letter to the federal government earlier this week.

In the letter Monday to the federal ministers of health and public safety, Ontario said it has already closed its boundaries with Quebec and Manitoba to non-essential travel, but there are no measures in place to protect provinces from the spread of COVID-19 variants through interprovincial air travel, an area of federal responsibility.

At another news conference on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there are already tight controls at Canada’s land borders, including tests before and after crossing and the mandatory two-week quarantine.

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Trudeau also said Ontario had asked Ottawa to suspend the arrival of international students and that federal officials will reach out to work directly with the province. He says no other province has made the same request.

And Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, said that while there appears to be a “preoccupation” with border controls, the measures now in place are reasonable to mitigate risk. Njoo, speaking at a federal press conference, emphasized the need to curb community transmission of the virus and vaccinate the population.

Ontario reported 3,887 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.

That brings the total number of cases to 463,364 since the pandemic began.

The province also reported that 21 more people died of the virus, bringing the total number of deaths to 8,050.

Toronto continues to lead the province, with 1,331 new cases, followed by Peel (871 cases); York (267); Durham (208); and Hamilton (204).

The province conducted 53,074 tests Thursday with a positivity rate of 7.4 per cent.

There were 112,214 more vaccines administered.

There were 2,201 people in hospital, with 883 of them in intensive care and 632 of those patients on ventilators.

In its latest report issued Thursday, Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table said the pandemic’s third wave appears to have crested in the province, but warned against relaxing public health restrictions. Case counts of the virus remain high and the hospital system is struggling, with record numbers of patients in intensive care, the report said.

The province also reported that as of Thursday night, 5.1 million doses of vaccine had been administered.

-With files from The Canadian Press and Postmedia