Ontario’s premier announced on Monday that Canada’s most populous province will lift its COVID-19 proof-of-vaccination requirements in two weeks — not because of the protests that have blocked the border and paralysed Ottawa, he said, but because “it is safe to do so.”

The busiest US-Canada border crossing, meanwhile, was open again on Monday after police removed the last of the protesters who had bottled up the Ambassador Bridge for nearly a week in a demonstration against Canada’s virus restrictions. But the larger truck-borne protest in the capital, Ottawa, persisted as city residents seethed over authorities’ inability to reclaim the streets.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that on March 1, the province will drop its requirement that people show proof of vaccination to get into restaurants, gyms and sporting events. A surge of cases caused by the Omicron variant has crested in Canada.