Dr. Kit Young Hoon, medical officer of health at the Northwestern Health Unit (NWHU), said on Friday it was still unknown whether the stay at home order will be ending this week or not, though an announcement is expected today or tomorrow.
“I know that small businesses in our area are frustrated with the closure but we want to thank them for continuing to follow the regulations and finding innovative and safe ways to operate under the current orders,” Young Hoon said.
Young Hoon added that since the provincial shutdown is a provincial decision, they will have their own benchmarks to consider and whether to extend the lockdown orders or restrictions.
“Right now, based on our current statistics, if you were to use the response framework of the province we would be under yellow,” Young Hoon said. “I think there’s no cut-off from my perspective anyway that needs to be met for reopening right now.”
Young Hoon said despite the increase in cases over the holidays, case numbers have been steady.
“We still continue to get cases, I think definitely there’s always this underlying risk that we just have to manage all the time and people still need to follow public health measures to control that risk,” Young Hoon said.
There was one new positive test result was reported in Kenora on Friday, and an additional eight on Sunday and two in Sioux Lookout.
Young Hoon said people coming from outside of the region can increase the risk to the NWHU catchment area and they have noticed areas with higher incidence rates because of interaction between households.
“Overall, I think we’re in a space where our numbers are generally manageable and hopefully at some point, public health restrictions will be loosened or reduced considering our low numbers,” Young Hoon said.
Young Hoon said it would be reasonable for public health restrictions to be lifted but even if they are, the public needs to be additionally vigilant. She adds that it should not suddenly be a scenario of more socialising, going out and interacting.
“When we think about the mutations of the virus or the variants of concern we do know that if variants were to enter our catchment area would be very challenging to manage,” Young Hoon said. “What we understand from the virus that it’s more transmissible.”
Young Hoon recommends that when vaccines are available to get them. Young Hoon adds that some individuals such as those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, immunocompromised and have autoimmune diseases should speak to their healthcare provider about the vaccine but that most are still eligible to receive it.
“There’s a pretty high benchmark for vaccines in order for them to be approved and they go through a national approval process by Health Canada and then all the information gets reviewed by the National Advisory Committee on Immunizations,” Young Hoon said. “There’s no reductions in the standards required for vaccines for the COVID-19 vaccines. The process has been sped up in order to make the vaccines available faster but the requirements and the standards remain the same.”
Young Hoon adds that with any vaccine, there is always ongoing monitoring for any potential adverse effects that could come from the vaccine that have not been detected yet.
Until vaccines become readily available to the public, Young Hoon reminds the public to continue following COVID-19 safety protocols.
