Restaurants and malls can reopen in parts of Ontario on Friday, Toronto-area excluded

Details surrounding Stage 2 announced by Ontario The Ontario government announces details surrounding Stage 2 of its restart phase.

TORONTO — A significant list of businesses, including restaurants, hair salons and malls, will be allowed to reopen as of Friday in parts of Ontario, except the Toronto-area and a few other regions, as the province enters Stage 2 of its restart phase through a regional approach.

The majority of Ontario's public health unit regions will move forward to Stage 2 on June 12, the province announced on Monday afternoon.

Health units in the Greater Toronto Area, along with a few others like Niagara and Windsor, are not included on the list of regions moving forward into Stage 2 on Friday. The regions excluded from the list will remain in Stage 1 of the restart phase.

The province said at the beginning of each week the government will provide an update on the ongoing assessment of these regions and determine whether they are ready to move into Stage 2 at the end of the week.

Full list of regions moving to Stage 2

The province is also increasing social gathering rules, now allowing up to 10 people as of Friday. The increased social gathering rules apply to the entire province, regardless of whether the region is moving to Stage 2, but physical distancing rules still apply.

The province said the decision to move forward to Stage 2 was made in consultation Chief Medical Officer of Health and local health officials.

Ontario is also allowing places of worship to reopen, with attendance limited to 30 per cent capacity, with physical distancing rules in place.

"We're moving forward with an approach that lets us make decisions for specific parts of Ontario based on what's happening on the ground, based on the advice of the chief medical officer of health, our command table and our local public health experts," Premier Doug Ford said on Monday.

"We will continue to keep a close eye on regions that will not open this Friday and we need just a little more time."

"For the regions that have to wait a little bit longer, I ask you, please remain patient."

Ford said he's confident that the regions who are not moving to Stage 2 will get there "very, very soon."

These are the businesses that can reopen in regions entering Stage 2:

These are the public health units moving to Stage 2:

These are the public health units not moving to Stage 2:

Ontario reported 243 new COVID-19 cases Monday, and 24 more deaths. That brings the province to a total of 30,860 cases -- an increase of 0.8 per cent over the previous day, which is the lowest growth rate since early March.

The total includes 2,450 deaths and 24,492 cases that have been resolved -- 240 more than the previous day.

Ontario also reported another drop in the number of people in hospital -- from 635 to 603 -- a trend over the past several days. One week ago there were about 800 people in hospital with COVID-19 and at the end of last month it was around 900.

The number of people on ventilators also dropped from 92 to 81, though the number of people in intensive care rose slightly.

The province reported completing 15,357 tests in the previous day -- well short of its goal of doing 20,000 per day, though weekends