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The Ontario government says it is suspending all new eviction notices in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak that has infected hundreds across the country.

A statement sent out Monday evening from the Ministry of the Attorney General said, “Tribunals Ontario is reviewing pending eviction matters in light of the rapidly evolving circumstances related to COVID-19 and no new eviction orders will be issued until further notice.”

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The statement also said that Sheriff’s offices were asked to postpone any scheduled eviction enforcements set for this week.

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Ontario has reported a total of 172 cases of the virus, following an announcement of 32 new cases earlier on Monday.

Health officials said that the province may be seeing the virus spread through community transmission.

“The numbers are going up very rapidly. It’s a very quickly-evolving situation now,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health.

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“We have found that the numbers of new cases have almost doubled in a few days … We really cannot definitively rule out community transmission. That is why, at this point, we feel that we need to take more measures.”

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Of the total 177 cases, five have been resolved.

— With files from Global News’ Jessica Patton and Ryan Rocca