Chatham-Kent Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby expects the area will reopen under the Red-Control Level of COVID-19 restriction measures on February 16 when the Stay-at-Home order is lifted.
The colour-coded system will again be in effect beginning February 17 but CK Public Health is still waiting to find out what colour the area will return to and what measures will be in place.
Colby said the local COVID-19 numbers are currently hovering between Red-Control and Orange-Restrict levels. Colby said currently, the numbers are high but he believes active cases will start dropping considerably when the large outbreak at Fairfield Park Nursing Home in Wallaceburg gets resolved. Colby added he's no a big fan of the provincial colour-coded system.
"I will not be a real happy camper if we have less stringent precautions in place than our neighbours because that encourages people to migrate to our community to seek services," said Colby. "Whether that will be taken into account this time I don't know but those kinds of viewings have been expressed to the government. Not to allow big discrepancies between co-dependent neighbours."
The Red-Control level is the level below lockdown and comes with stringent measures such as implementing broad-scale measures and restrictions across multiple sectors to control transmission, and the restrictions are the most severe available before widescale business or organizational closures.
Meantime, Dr. Colby said that all residents at long-term care facilities and high-risk retirement homes in the area have now been vaccinated with the exception of Fairfield Park Nursing Home in Wallaceburg, which is still dealing with an outbreak. However, he said vaccines have been reserved for Fairfield Park residents and the shots are ready to go when the outbreak is over. Colby previously said the province does not recommend vaccination teams go into long-term care homes that are in outbreak until that situation stabilizes. He didn't believe there was any point in going in to vaccinate those residents because the vaccine doesn’t work on someone who has already been infected. The doctor is also confident the second round of long-term care doses can be administered in time because the maximum window is 42 days between shots.
Colby said he's anxiously waiting for more doses to arrive but doesn't know when that will be. Colby also voiced his displeasure that other health units are sitting on vaccines waiting to get the second booster shots done. He said they should be going into arms right away. Colby added low-risk retirement homes are not part of the Phase 1 vaccination distribution.
