Vital updates:

• The GNCC is conducting a survey on the impact that the proposed 10-paid-sick-day policy will have on your business. We have heard from several members already indicating that this measure would impose an additional cost that they cannot afford, especially now. The results from this survey will form the basis of the GNCC’s lobbying efforts to the provincial and federal governments, and will also be passed on to business organizations including the Ontario and Canadian Chambers of Commerce. If this policy would impact your business, please complete the survey now. The survey has only one question and will take a few seconds to complete.
• Premier Doug Ford and Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, today released the next phase of the province’s COVID-19 testing plan, Protecting Ontarians Through Enhanced Testing, which includes three branches of testing:
  • Assessment Centre Testing: expanding who gets tested to now include asymptomatic individuals concerned about exposure and continued routine symptomatic testing at assessment centres.
  • Targeted Campaigns: detecting and containing cases by expanding asymptomatic surveillance for vulnerable populations, including in long-term care homes and other shared living spaces like shelters and group homes, as well as targeted testing of workplaces in priority sectors which work with priority populations and where it may be difficult to physically distance.
  • Outbreak Management: testing to ensure rapid and agile response capacity for outbreak management, including in specific neighbourhoods and regions or at hospitals, institutions and workplaces.
  • To help enable increased access to routine symptomatic testing, people will no longer need a referral to go to any of the more than 130 assessment centres across Ontario. Information about the assessment centres is now easily accessible on Ontario’s dedicated COVID-19 website.
• Premier Doug Ford has said that he is considering a regional, phased approach to reopening the province amid the COVID-19 pandemic, reversing his earlier resistance to the option. Such a move could see a relaxing of restrictions in regions such as Niagara come earlier than in the GTA.
• The Provincial Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs will meet for the study of the recommendations relating to the Economic and Fiscal Update Act, 2020 and the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on certain sectors of the economy. The Committee intends to hold public hearings on the tourism sector by videoconference (Zoom) from Thursday, June 4, 2020 to Monday, June 22, 2020, excluding weekends. Interested people who wish to be considered to make an oral presentation on the Tourism sector by videoconference or teleconference are required to register by 12:00 noon (EDT) on Monday, June 1, 2020. Those who do not wish to make an oral presentation but wish to comment on the Tourism sector may send a written submission by 5:00 p.m. (EDT) on Monday, June 22, 2020. To register or send a written submission, please visit the following link: ola.org/en/apply-committees.

Reading recommendations:

• What the COVID-19 employment crisis tells us about the future of work, Brandie Weikle, CBC News
• The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus, Nadja Popovich & Margot Sanger-Katz, The New York Times
• Some Countries Have Brought New Cases Down To Nearly Zero. How Did They Do It? Jason Beaubien, NPR