Ontario premier expected to make announcement Wednesday on COVID-19 booster doses

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is expected to make an announcement Wednesday on COVID-19 booster doses, as the province's top doctor says he will make recommendations to the government on other potential health measures needed to battle the threat of the Omicron variant.

The announcement comes two days after people aged 50 to 69 -- about 3.4 million Ontario residents -- became eligible to book their third shots. Moore, as well as the head of the Ontario Hospital Association, said the province has been working with health partners to ramp up vaccination capacity.

Sources told CTV News Toronto that Premier Doug Ford will meet with his cabinet on Wednesday morning to discuss Ontario's response to the rapid growth of Omicron cases and review Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore's recommendations.

"There will be a discussion in the next coming days about what additional measures we need, if any, to best protect Ontarians against Omicron," Moore said Tuesday. "Further news will be announced later this week."

He said capacity limits are being reviewed by his team, and options will be presented to the Ford government as part of his recommendations such as maximum group sizes for gatherings and best practices in schools.

Moore said he expects 100 per cent of positive COVID-19 samples in Ontario to be of the Omicron variant before the end of the month, adding that a single case of omicron is infecting four to eight times more people than a Delta variant case.

He said while he would be "delighted" if reports are true that Omicron causes less severe illness, Ontario is still "planning for the worst."

Though the new variant is still being studied, Moore says there is evidence that it transmits more easily and that more fully vaccinated people are becoming infected with it.

"We are not hoping as a strategy, we are planning to best protect our healthcare system," he said. "We're taking nothing for granted with this rapidly spreading virus."

Moore also said he wants a "consistent provincial approach" to Omicron restrictions, instead of each public health unit putting their own measures in place.

Health officials in Ontario are reporting 1,429 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday.

-- With files from the Canadian Press