Ontario’s Mask Mandate Set to be Lifted by 31 March

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Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said “the trends look so good that we can anticipate removing mandatory masking by the end of March if the trends continue.” This news comes as the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, said to be 1.5 more transmissible than the original Omicron variant, is modeled to become the dominant variant by mid-March. Around 35 percent of Ontarians are believed to be less vulnerable, due to a recent COVID-19 infection. Moore says that reinfection is only occurring in a “very small proportion of cases.” The number of hospitalizations are now around 800, after the peak of 4 000 in January. However, Moore states that “it does not mean the risk is gone.” [CP24] [Grace Pu]

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Gas Prices Set to Rise to More Than $2.00

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As gas prices have risen more than 25 cents in the past week, Dan McTeague, president of the Canadians for Affordable Energy, describes this as the “calm before the storm.” As tensions in Europe rise, fears of cut oil supplies caused the price of a barrel of oil to rise from $95 in late February to over $120 overnight. Although the initial spike has somewhat died down, surging demand is still keeping prices high, and with “several more months of continued demand” inbound, warns McTeague. [CP24][CTV News][Gavin Xue]