Most provinces have no plans to reimpose COVID-19 restrictions as cases surge

As things stand now, the provinces told Global News they're confident they have the healthcare capacity to handle the current wave of COVID cases

It’ll take more than the current surge in COVID-19 cases to get provinces to bring back serious restrictions — but none are willing to divulge exact figures of just how much worse things would have to get.

Multiple provinces, including Ontario, P.E.I., Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba and Alberta said a major factor they consider when it comes to deciding whether to re-impose restrictions is whether a wave threatens their region’s health-care capacity.

As things stand now, the provinces told Global News they’re confident they have the health-care capacity to handle the current wave of COVID cases — though they didn’t say exactly what that capacity is — and they will adjust their stances if that changes.

“The latest modelling shows that our hospitals and health system can manage any of the projected scenarios, while not compromising our ability to continue addressing the surgical backlog caused by the pandemic,” wrote Bill Campbell, a spokesperson for Ontario’s ministry of health.

Alberta echoed the sentiment in their own statement, saying the numbers of patients in the province’s hospitals remains “stable” or are “down recently” — and that they’re definitely “within normal bed capacity overall.”

“We do not expect to see the hospitals strained as they were in the initial omicron wave but we’ll continue to monitor closely,” said Steve Buick, a spokesperson for Alberta’s health minister, in an emailed statement.

Global News reached out to every province and territory Wednesday morning, but most did not reply by the time of publication.

The provinces that responded did not attach specific metrics to their decisions about COVID-19 restrictions.