As the calendar gets ready to flip to December, the London region's top doctor is urging residents to keep holiday gatherings small.
Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Alex Summers has expressed concern that the combination of colder weather forcing people indoors, the holidays, and the arrival of the Omicron variant could lead to an uptick in case counts locally.
"I'm increasingly concerned about this," said Summers. "The current provincial regulations and rules limit gatherings to 25 people for indoor social gatherings and it's absolutely critical that you don't go beyond that number. I would actually encourage you to keep that number smaller."
In addition to that, Summers wants hosts to keep the invite list to only those who have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
"Please, please make sure those who you spend time with are fully vaccinated,” said Summers.
Health units in other jurisdictions across the province including Kingston, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, and Oxford and Elgin counties have already tightened existing COVID-19 public health measures to help slow the increased spread of the virus. But that is a move Summers isn't willing to make just yet.
"We will be monitoring to see which [tightened restrictions] are working, as well as looking at our own trends to see if that will be necessary in our region," said Summers.
Southwestern Public Health, the health unit for Oxford and Elgin counties, is reducing capacity limits to 50 per cent inside businesses such as restaurants, bars, gyms, and movie theatres in eight of its municipalities as of Thursday. The lower capacity limit will remain in place for six weeks. It comes as the area deals with its highest number of active cases since January.
