As COVID-19 cases across Ontario continue to trend upward, more residents are worried about the impact it may have on restrictions ahead of the holiday season.
The province reported 928 new infections Tuesday morning, 450 of which were among unvaccinated individuals.
During CHOK's Community Update with Sue Storr, Lambton Medical Officer of Health Dr. Sudit Ranade said even this far into the pandemic, lockdowns are still possible.
"I'm going to try not to sugar coat this, but I'm going to try not to be excessively negative about it either," said Dr. Ranade. "I think lockdowns need to continue to be on the table as an option, but I think the threshold for using them needs to be higher than it used to be, and the reason is because more people are vaccinated, and because more people are doing things and because we've done this over and over again. I think we know that they work, it's just that they're awful and nobody wants to do them, and they have a lot of unintentional negative consequences as well. That's why I think, keep it on the table because it's important to have that tool in the toolbox, but the threshold needs to be much higher."
Dr. Ranade said we have to make some very difficult collective decisions around how we function over the next month or two.
"When you put Omicron into the mix and the fact that cases are rising around the world, that gets a lot of people really nervous," he said. "We want to do as much as we can on the transmission side, but recognizing that most of the ways that we impact transmission are really ways that people are tired of not doing anymore, which is staying away from everyone else and not socializing. Everybody's really tired of that, but I think we also know that is essentially the way that this is spreading in communities."
In a tweet, Health Minister Christine Elliott said 87.4 per cent of Ontarians 12-years-old and up are fully vaccinated for the virus, while 90.1 per cent have had one dose of a vaccine.
Across Sarnia-Lambton, 75 per cent of the eligible population aged five and up is fully vaccinated, while 78 per cent have had one shot.
To listen to Dr. Ranade's full interview click here.
