Ontario Premier Doug Ford defended his government’s decision to allow for dance studios in modified Stage 2 regions to reopen, but not fitness studios, saying the former will often see the same people or “cohorts” while it may not be the case in fitness-related businesses.

Ford made the comments during a COVID-19 update, joined by Education Minister Stephen Lecce on Tuesday.

Asked about conflicting messages from different doctors about trick-or-treating, including Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam, the premier urged people to abide by the guidance on trick-or-treating and not go if in a modified Stage 2 region. He also asked people not to drive to a Stage 3 region just to trick-or-treat, stressing they’ll be able to lower COVID-19 cases again if they continue to abide by guidance.

The premier also said the backlog of COVID-19 tests had been cleared up, but questioned why the test rate was only about 24,000 tests conducted - well below the target. He said he wasn’t sure if it was a case of people not coming in for testing, did not have symptoms and thus were not getting tests or if there may be another reason.

The province reported 821 new cases of the virus on Tuesday, bringing the provincial total to 65,896.

For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/7407460/ontario-coronavirus-cases-october-20-covid19/

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