High contact sports, choir and other extracurriculars can resume in Ontario schools after a temporary pause on the activities when students returned to in-person learning amid the Omicron wave.
The province announced the changes on Thursday.
Some low contact sports that allow for physical distancing like tennis have been ongoing in schools but high contact sports such as basketball and volleyball were paused in January due to COVID-19 risk.
Singing and the playing of wind instruments have also not been permitted but they will now be allowed.
The province said participants in extracurriculars still have to wear masks while on school premises but they can remove them temporarily “where required,” while playing instruments or sports.
The changes in permitted schools activities come weeks after students headed back to classes in-person, following a two-week pandemic shutdown in January as the Omicron variant caused cases to soar.
The exact number of COVID-19 cases isn’t known due to changes in the province’s testing policy, but other indicators like hospitalizations and intensive care admissions from the virus have been declining, prompting the province to dial back more restrictions.
Also on Thursday, the province said it was officially lifting a directive that paused surgeries and other procedures to preserve health system capacity at the peak of the Omicron wave.
The province said the “steady decline” in hospitalizations and intensive care admissions from COVID-19 means more procedures deemed non-urgent can gradually resume.
There were 1,897 people reported in hospital with COVID-19 and 445 patients in intensive care as of Thursday, down from 2,059 hospitalized patients and 413 people in ICU the day before.
The province also reported 44 more virus-related deaths.
Schools have closed and reopened repeatedly in Ontario during the pandemic and extracurriculars have been paused as a COVID-19 precaution at various points.
Some local health officials have split from the official provincial guidance at times when it comes to pandemic rules around indoor high-contact sports, due to the heightened risk of spread as people breathe heavily in close proximity.
Last fall, health units across the province implemented stricter COVID-19 vaccination rules for youth participation in sports.
One school board in Ottawa held back on resuming sports when classes resumed last September, contrary to Ministry of Education advice that they go ahead. Other health units were at the same time advising school boards to avoid restarting extracurriculars right away due to high case numbers.
Organized sports were also an early known source of transmission of the Omicron variant shortly after it was first detected in the province. In December, public health officials in Waterloo Region linked clusters of Omicron cases to hockey tournaments held elsewhere in the province.
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