Ontario is planning to roll out a new tiered system for COVID-19 restrictions

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is reportedly gearing up to introduce a new system for implementing COVID-19 restrictions, up to and including full lockdowns, based on the public health situation in any given region.

Government sources told CTV News on Monday that Ford will be revealing the plan Tuesday, and that the tiered restriction system would work like "a dimmer switch allowing regions to gradually increase or decrease restrictions as needed."

New rules with more precise criteria for when to shut things down and how are expected to replace the existing "modified Stage 2" restrictions that currently apply to Toronto, Peel, Ottawa and York Region.

The province ordered all of the above regions, save for York which joined a few weeks later, to shut down gyms, bars, indoor restaurants, cinemas and other sites considered to be high-risk for transmission of the coronavirus.

Toronto was told on Oct. 9, as case numbers reached record (at the time) highs, that these modified Stage 2 restrictions would stay in place for 28 days, beginning at midnight on Oct. 10.

That 28-day-long period ends on Nov. 6 — this Friday — but the province has yet to give word on whether the restrictions will be lifted or extended.

Ford told reporters during his daily pandemic press conference on Monday that his administration will make a decision on the matter "very soon" based on reccomendations from the COVID-19 health panel.