The medical officer of health in Chatham-Kent is issuing a warning about celebrating the end of COVID-19 prematurely because we may not be done with the virus just yet.
Dr. David Colby said we still have a considerable amount of COVID-19 in the community and cases could rise again in the municipality, as is the case currently in Northern Ontario.
Colby said the local public health unit is keeping a very close eye on the situation, even though testing eligibility is less than ideal and numbers are not accurate.
"Everyone wants to pretend that this is over and it's not over. We still have to keep a very close eye on things," he said.
Colby said a nasty variant could spoil the party at any time because Chatham-Kent has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the province.
"We have to hope that there are not going to be malicious variants that arise and threaten our health system and our way of life again," he said. "I don't think that wide-eyed, tail-wagging optimism is warranted at this point."
Colby once again emphasized that he doesn't plan to keep masks mandatory in the community or at schools in Chatham-Kent once the province drops the masking requirement. Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health said on Thursday that the province could lift masking mandates by end of March if positive trends continue.
Colby has never been a fan of mandatory masking, opting instead for physical distancing as a better choice to prevent infection.
