‘We can’t take chances,’ celebrate the holidays only with other members of your household, Doug Ford urges

Ho-ho-hold off on inviting guests for Christmas.

That’s the advice from the provincial government as cases continue to rise at near-record levels and deaths mount, with 35 more fatalities reported Wednesday.

“We can’t take chances,” Premier Doug Ford told his daily briefing. “We have to bend the curve and stop the spread.”

He said public health experts are urging people to celebrate only with members of their own households, especially in the lockdown zones of Toronto and Peel.

People who live alone can pair exclusively with one other household and students returning from college and university should quarantine in their dorms or apartments and limit close contacts for 10 to 14 days before travelling home.

While pandemic guidelines allow people who live in green, yellow and orange zones in Ontario’s five-stage, colour-coded framework for pandemic restrictions to have up to 10 people indoors, Ford still urged caution.

“This year isn’t like any other.”

The New Democrats said Ontario ended up in a dicey situation so close to the holiday season because Ford waited too long to impose meaningful public health restrictions and the virus got out of control.

“It never should have come to this,” Deputy NDP Leader John Vanthof said in a statement.

Under fire for the closures of non-essential businesses to customers in Toronto and Peel, Ford asked Ontarians to order from them online or by phone and do curbside pickup instead of shopping on major websites like Amazon.com.

“Shop local and shop early.”

Ontario reported 1,373 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, just below the seven-day average of 1,389 that peaked at 1,443 on Nov. 16.

There were 445 new infections in Toronto, 415 in Peel and 136 in York Region, which is hoping to stay out of lockdown on Friday when the province decides where public health measures need to be strengthened.

Nine of the last 35 deaths were in nursing homes, where 59 more residents and 16 staff have tested positive for the highly contagious virus.

While the number of people in hospital for COVID-19 fell to 523 and those in intensive care remained steady at 159, another 15 critically ill ICU patients required intubation to be placed on ventilators to breathe, raising that number to 106.

Schools had 162 new cases in students and staff, with 688 or 14 per cent of Ontario’s 4,828 schools reporting infections. Four schools were closed because of outbreaks.

Rob Ferguson is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: