Ontario

The Canadian province Ontario is imposing a hard lockdown before the Christmas holidays. Thousands of lives are at stake, said Ontario’s premier Doug Ford. Northern communities face two weeks of restrictions while densely populated cities in the south will be in lockdown for a month.

What will be closed: Most in-person education, schools, restaurants, bars, malls, entertainment venues, gyms.

Police forces across Ontario engaged in broad, illegal searches of a now-defunct Covid-19 database, two civil rights groups alleged Wednesday, claiming the use of the portal violated individual privacy rights for months.

In Canada’s two largest provinces by population, the number of new cases has been decreasing. Even in Quebec, where the number of coronavirus cases has exceeded the rest of the country combined, had only 120 new cases on Thursday, significantly below the average of 500-600 prior. There is no clear reason for this decrease.