Garden centres and other stores slated to reopen

Garden centres and nurseries will be able to reopen on May 8 at 12:01 a.m., just before Mother's Day, Premier Doug Ford announced Wednesday. On May 9, hardware and safety supply stores can also reopen. And on May 11, retail stores with a street entrance can begin offering curbside pickup and delivery.

All stores with in-store payments will have to follow "strict" public health measures, such as physical distancing and disinfecting surfaces — the same guidelines grocery stores have had to follow, Ford said.

“My friends, we are at the start of a long road, and a long journey of recovery," he said, adding that he had "cautious optimism" about the way forward.

The LCBO also announced plans to expand store hours starting on May 14. Over 360 stores will operate from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, while other locations will stick with the reduced schedule of 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, the agency said in a release. Most stores will be open from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Sundays. Store hours will be listed at lcbo.com as of May 14.

Ford would not say when restaurants will be able to open. “Hopefully sooner than later," he said.

On Wednesday, there were 412 new COVID-19 cases, a 2.3-per-cent increase from the day before. The number of deaths has risen to 1,429.

Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli announced that Oakville’s Virox Technologies is the first recipient of the Ontario Together fund — the $50-million pot launched in April for companies tweaking their production to help in the fight against COVID-19.

Virox will use the money to cover the costs of a new assembly line to double their production of disinfectant wipes, Fedeli said.

A pivot on provincial data collection

Ontario will begin collecting socioeconomic and race-based data about people who have COVID-19, provincial medical officers of health said.

Some public health experts have been calling for the province to collect that data to determine who is being disproportionately affected by the coronavirus and local public health units including Toronto, Peel and London-Middlesex.

Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams said Wednesday the spread of the virus started among the socioeconomic status associated with travel and cruise ships, but now it's spreading throughout the wider population.

The province has decided that collecting the data will inform policy decisions that could help stop the virus from spreading to high-risk populations as social distancing restrictions ease, he said.

Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe said the province is still working on exactly what questions the local public health units should be asking people with COVID-19, but said the collection of that data will begin "very soon."

"They will be questions that will be asked on a voluntary basis," she said, adding that is because health information is excluded from the province's Anti-Racism Act, which sets up a framework for the collection of race-based data.

The news was welcomed by Liberal MPP Michael Coteau, the former anti-racism minister who introduced the legislation.

“I urge our public health officials to expedite this process and ensure all patients are given the option to provide their demographic information, so we can do what the experts tell us needs to be done to learn from this pandemic, and how it impacts different segments of our society," he said in a statement.

Should companies profit from long-term care?

Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott acknowledged that there were serious issues in long-term care that predated the pandemic, but declined to pin any of those issues on private ownership.

Several studies and reports have found links between for-profit nursing homes and inferior care. Two class-action lawsuits have been launched in Ontario recently against private care providers, alleging the companies were ill-equipped for the pandemic and did not respond properly to it.

“The system is absolutely broken. We are going to fix it,” Ford said, though he neither expressed support for the private ownership of long-term care homes nor called for that to change, when pressed by a reporter on the issue.

Elliott pointed out that the army is now helping out in five long-term care homes, and hospitals have also boosted staffing at facilities.

Ford declined to consider following Quebec's lead in allowing some caregivers access to long-term care homes, saying he respects Premier François Legault's decision, "but we aren't ready yet."

“I can’t allow that right now. It’d be a massive risk to the whole system,” he said.

Patient advocates and family caregivers have been calling for similar measures for weeks, decrying the province's strict visitation policies as cruel and unhelpful for people who normally rely on family members for care.

Who's to blame for the lack of testing?

The premier said he was only trying to "push" local testing facilities on Tuesday when he lashed out at medical officers of health for not hitting the province's COVID-19 testing targets.

“Let’s be very clear, I don’t want to blame anyone," he said.

On Tuesday, Ford called out "certain medical officers in certain jurisdictions" who "just aren't performing." He called on some public health units to "start picking up your socks."

Ford said on Wednesday that his words weren't personal, but that Ontarians expect him to turn up the heat on public health units during the pandemic.

“Who else is going to push them?" he said.

“They do have a responsibility to co-ordinate testing," he added. "And maybe we'll make it very clear: when the province puts down a provincial order to get everyone tested, we mean it. Get everyone tested in long-term care, and then go to retirement, test all the health-care workers at long-term care. I don't know how much clearer we could be. But it's not about going after someone personally, and if they take it personal then I apologize. But let me tell you, everyone has to be held accountable."

Ontario has lagged behind on testing compared to the rest of the country, consistently falling short of its goals. Experts say widespread testing and contact tracing is necessary for a safe reopening of the economy.

R.I.P, blue license plates

The defective blue license plates are officially dead, to be replaced by the old white plates with the "Yours to Discover" slogan.

The blue plates were unreadable in certain lighting conditions.

About 145,000 blue plates were manufactured, the premier's office said in a statement. The government will look at options for "alternative" uses for them, such as trailers or recreational vehicles.

"In the interim, we will be exhausting all remaining passenger plates that we have in stock, including the existing supply of blue licence plates," the statement reads.

The plates "have not been top of mind for me over the last little while," Ford said on Wednesday. He repeated the promise that there will no cost to the taxpayers to replace the plates.

The government's stated reason for replacing the white license plates in the first place was that some suffered from peeling issues. "The delamination issue with this plate has been resolved by the manufacturers with a five-year guarantee on the product," the premier's office noted.

However, that guarantee isn't a new development — it predates the Ford government by several years.

The government asked Ontarians not to visit a ServiceOntario centre to exchange their licence plates during the COVID-19 pandemic "unless it is absolutely necessary."

-with files from Jessica Smith Cross

A pivot on data collection, more stores to reopen, and the end of blue license plates: Your COVID-19 roundup

Read this for free.