The province entered the first phase of a three-step reopening plan on June 11, 2021. Non-essential retailers were able to reopen, patio dining resumed and outdoor fitness classes restarted, among other things. Hair salons and other personal care services, however, are only slated to open in Step 2 – which won’t kick in until next month. 

Now, hair salon owners are calling on Ontario to allow their industry to reopen, saying their establishments are safe and employ ample measures to guard against COVID-19. 

GUEST: Debbie Dunseath, President of the Ontario Professional Hairstylists Association

It's time for Tech Talk with Adam Oldfield!

Topics Include: Facebook, Google for Small Businesses, Electric vehicles & more.

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast:

The Ontario government has moved up second doses for those who got a COVID-19 shot in May while three more local public health units were added as hot spot areas where the Delta variant is of concern.

In new documents released Thursday, officials said Ontarians who got a first dose from May 10 to May 30, and are in a Delta hot spot, can book an earlier second shot starting Wednesday, June 23.

Three more local public health units — Hamilton, Simcoe-Muskoka and Durham Region — were added as Delta hot spots, joining Toronto, Halton, Peel, Porcupine, Waterloo, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph and York.

Last week, Ontario announced that those in Delta hot spots were eligible to get an earlier second vaccine dose if they received a first shot on or before May 9. Starting on Monday, June 21 all Ontarians, regardless of being in a hot spot and who got a vaccination on or before May 9, can rebook for a second dose appointment.

GUEST: Dr. Barry Pakes, Public Health and Preventive Medicine physician, and a Professor with Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto

-

The show must go on. But if you got the AstraZeneca vaccine, you’re not invited.

Canadians who got that shot will not, at least for now, be allowed in seats for “Springsteen on Broadway,” the first production since the famous theatres went dark at the start of the pandemic.

“It’s just plain not fair,” said University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman. While the Canada-U.S. border is closed to non-essential travel, it’s expected to open soon, and though making it to a show is not a life-or-death situation, “it’s a huge problem.”

It could also be just the beginning of bureaucratic vaccine woes, as the world starts to reopen with a patchwork of different approved shots.

ALSO: Vaccine committee says provinces should give AstraZeneca recipients a different vaccine for second dose

GUEST: Dr. Rodney Rohde, Professor and Chair of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at the College of Health Professions with Texas State University

-

Ontario Premier Doug Ford pledged last year to make air conditioning mandatory in every nursing home, including residents’ bedrooms. But his government has awarded construction contracts for new facilities that do not include cooling systems throughout the building.

Under the province’s building standards, new nursing homes are not required to install air conditioning in residents’ bedrooms, leaving the elderly more vulnerable to dehydration and heat-related illness on sweltering summer days.

GUEST: Dr. Amit Arya, Co-Founder of Doctors For Justice in Long Term Care and Palliative Care Physician