Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens has thrown his support behind new COVID-19 restrictions.
Ontario will be under a state of emergency for 28-days starting at Thursday at 12:01 a.m. The state of emergency will require everyone to remain at home with the exception of essential purposes such as going to the grocery store, pharmacy, accessing health-care services, exercising, or essential work.
Dilkens says the desire for pre-pandemic normalcy is putting everyone at risk as Windsor-Essex has one of the highest infection rates in the province.
"They [the restrictions] are absolutely necessary if we have any hope of keeping our hospitals available for critical incidents that happen," he added.
He's asking everyone to follow the rules so life can return to normal at some point.
"Let's do our part for the next 28-days so we can get over this hump because there is light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine that's here with more on the way, but we need to get through this difficult part of the winter with this second wave of COVID-19," says Dilkens.
Essential services will continue, but Dilkens says the city is still working things out before Thursday morning's deadline.
"In general terms your garbage will still be collected, those types of things that you expect," he says. "We're just going to try and do everything we can to follow these rules and keep our employees safe while keeping residents safe at the same time."
Dilkens says more information on how the new restrictions will effect city operations is expected Wednesday.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit reported 16 more deaths and 175 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday.