Most Ontario regions outside the Toronto and Hamilton areas will be allowed to reopen more businesses today, with some asking GTA residents to stay away.
The second stage of the province’s reopening includes restaurant patios, hair salons and swimming pools.
Meanwhile, the limit on social gatherings will increase from five to 10 provincewide, but people must still stay two metres away from anyone outside their own household.
Child-care centres across Ontario will also be allowed to reopen, but it’s not yet clear how many will be able to implement new pandemic safety measures immediately.
The current pandemic restrictions will stay in place for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas, which have a high concentration of COVID-19 cases.
Border regions such as Windsor-Essex, Lambton County and Niagara, as well as Haldimand-Norfolk, which has seen an outbreak among migrant workers, will also not move to Stage 2 today.

Ottawa will spend a further $133 million to help Indigenous businesses suffering the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said Thursday the federal government has heard from many of the 30,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis business owners who have said the last few months have been extremely difficult.
He said many of them have been falling through gaps in previously announced aid.
Of the total amount announced Thursday, $117 million will go to help small and community-owned Indigenous businesses.
Communities can use this money to assist micro-entrepreneurs including home-based businesses as well as hunters and artisans who are ineligible for mainstream measures, Miller said.

A funeral service was held Thursday for Chantel Moore, a 26-year-old Indigenous woman who was killed by police in Edmundston, N.B., last week.
The private service was held in the New Brunswick community where she had moved three months ago to be near her mother and six-year-old daughter.
A dozen family members from British Columbia arrived earlier this week to support family in New Brunswick.
Police say Moore’s death came when an officer performing a wellness check allegedly encountered a woman with a knife.
The shooting is being investigated by Quebec’s independent police investigation agency.
There have been calls for a broader inquiry to review what is being called “systemic bias” against Indigenous people in the province’s policing and criminal justice systems

COVID-19 cases among agri-food workers in Windsor-Essex have spiked this week.
The region’s medical officer of health said 38 additional workers had tested positive for the virus, bringing the total number of infections to over 200 since the start of the pandemic.
Of those cases, about 90 per cent are temporary foreign workers.
Approximately 20,000 migrant workers come to Ontario each year to work on farms and in greenhouses.
Outbreaks have affected hundreds of migrant workers in the province.
An outbreak in Norfolk County has seen 165 workers at a local farm test positive for COVID-19, with seven of them admitted to hospital.
Two migrant workers have also died as a result of COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex.