Summary
Today, Premier Ford and Minister Elliott announced our government’s $2.8 billion COVID-19 fall preparedness plan to ensure the province’s health care, long-term care and education systems are prepared for the immediate challenges this fall, including a second wave of COVID-19 and the upcoming flu season. Keeping Ontarians Safe: Preparing for Future Waves of COVID-19 will enable the province to quickly identify, prevent and respond to surges and waves of the virus to protect the health and safety of all Ontarians.
The Keeping Ontarians Safe plan focuses on six key areas to rapidly identify and respond to COVID-19 outbreaks and surges, build health system capacity, and reinforce the province’s health care workforce. These areas are:
- Maintaining strong public health measures, including continued expansion of testing and case and contact management:
- Implementing the largest flu immunization campaign in Ontario’s history
- Quickly identifying, managing and preventing COVID-19 outbreaks
- Accelerating efforts to reduce health service backlogs
- Preparing for surges in COVID-19 cases
- Recruiting, retaining, training and supporting health care workers, while also continuing to engage families and caregivers
To support these six key areas of focus, our government also released plans to support long-term care homes and schools and child care centres.
Key Messages
- For months, our government has been developing one of the most robust and comprehensive COVID-19 fall preparedness plans in the entire country.
- We are making an unprecedented investment of $2.8 billion for our fall preparedness plan, to fortify the frontlines of our health care system and ensure we are prepared for future waves of this virus, while ensuring our most vulnerable continue to receive the absolute best care from our top-notch health care professionals and their loved ones.
- Ontario’s comprehensive plan, Keeping Ontarians Safe: Preparing for Future Waves of COVID-19, ensures our health care system is ready for the immediate challenges this fall, including a second wave of COVID-19 coupled with flu season.
- Keeping Ontarians Safe will help prevent illness and protect communities by identifying six key areas of focus:
- Maintaining strong public health measures, including continued expansion of testing and case and contact management;
- Implementing the largest flu immunization campaign in Ontario’s history;
- Quickly identifying, managing and preventing COVID-19 outbreaks;
- Accelerating efforts to reduce health service backlogs;
- Preparing for surges in COVID-19 cases; and
- Recruiting, retaining, training and supporting health care workers, while also continuing to engage families and caregivers.
- We cannot afford to let our guard down as the number of cases continue to increase.
- It remains critically important for everyone to continue to follow public health advice and measures as we implement this plan. Everyday actions like physical distancing, wearing a face covering and staying home when you are ill will help us protect each other and the most vulnerable as we continue our fight to stop this virus
News Links
English: https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/58610/ontario-delivers-28-billion-covid-19-fall-preparedness-plan