GET OUT AND ABOUT TOMORROW — BUT IT’S NOT A FREE PASS: GARDNER
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
SIMCOE-MUSKOKA — Tomorrow isn’t a get out of jail free card, says the region’s medical officer of health.
Dr. Charles Gardner says even with 16 local COVID cases today, Christmas shoppers could conceivably still have to wear masks indoors.
With a 32 per cent drop in local cases the past week — and 303 active cases this week compared to 542 a week ago — he is still urging caution in the opening days and weeks ahead.
The province’s stay-at-home order ends June, but some restrictions will remain — like indoor masks.
Gardner said “we’re headed in the right direction” with a “robust uptake” in vaccines.
But he says the region need 90 per cent coverage to avoid threat of a fourth wave in the fall.
Because as the pathogen refuses to die there’s no telling when 19 will end — if ever, he stressed.
With schools now likely to remain closed till September, Gardner said the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit plans second doses vaccinations for all school kids by mid-August — two weeks before schools would re-open for indoor classes.
It’s his feeling that students should return to indoor learning for their mental and physical health.
But Premier Doug Ford — for whom Gardner wouldn’t offer an A to F performance grade on when asked by MuskokaTODAY.com — wants to open businesses as quickly as possible.
Other medical officers of health, too, want schools to open — but agree with unions that they need to be done in concert with other health and safety measures.
Health unit figures show 53 per cent of the population has had one vaccine and 6.3 per cent two.
As of now Ontarians 80+ can get a second vaccine and on June 14 residents 70+ can book their next appointment. Yet it may take weeks to get the long desireed shot depending on federal supplies.
Vaccines are also available at pharmacies and through primary care.
Gardner said the local positivity rate is now at 3.4 per cent, just slightly below 3.8 per cent last week.
As well, cases per 100,000 population per week are down to 34.2 from 50.1 the previous week.
He told the media there was no spike in cases over Mother’s Day, which was encouraging. And next week he’ll know the results of Victoria Day holiday gatherings.
What he did admit was “quite noteworthy” is that for the first time since Nov. 22 there were no deaths this past week.
However, 31 people remain in hospital in Simcoe-Muskoka, with 17 of them local residents and 14 who reside outside the region.
And 50 per cent of today’s cases (18 by provincial accounts) were younger than 35 and most cases in May were work-related claim those infected.
In Muskoka, an outbreak of 5 residents and 5 staff at the Muskoka Shores LTC home in Gravenhurst was over May 27; and two others at an agricultural setting and in an accommodation location are also over.
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