TORONTO—Ontario hospitals are being instructed to ramp down elective surgeries and non-urgent procedures in order to treat a growing number of COVID-19 patients. Ontario Health’s president and CEO sent a memo Thursday night instructing hospitals to make the move to preserve critical care and human resources, starting Monday. Hospitals in northern Ontario are exempt but Matthew Anderson says they should prepare to ramp down quickly in the near future. The memo from the body that oversees the province’s health system also asks hospitals to identify staff who may be redeployed to other sites if necessary. Anderson says the measures are necessary given “mounting and extreme pressure on our critical care capacity” due to increasing COVID-19 case counts. He says Ontario Health will continue to monitor the situation with a view to bring back surgical capacity for deferred services as soon as possible. Ontario is reporting 4,227 new cases of COVID-19 …