Niagara’s Acting Medical Officer of Health says while the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases continues to steadily rise, we are not seeing an acceleration of cases.
Dr. Mustafa Hirji says, “We are approaching the three week point at which the province announced their State of Emergency. I’ve been expecting that around this time we would start to see a leveling off and maybe there’s some early signs of that.”
But he adds even if the numbers start to improve, everyone still needs to maintain social distancing measures. “Once that happens though, it’s going to be several weeks of those numbers slowly declining probably to get back down to small numbers and hopefully one day even zero. And I think because of that it’s really important that all the things we’ve been doing the past three weeks to stop the spread of infection are things that we keep doing. Because if we don’t keep doing that, we’re going to see those numbers come back up.”
He adds one of the biggest concerns on Public Health’s radar is ongoing outbreaks at retirement residences.
Hirji says Public Health is in frequent communication with the facilities and Public Health officials have gone to the residences to make sure all proper protocols are being followed to stop the spread of the virus.
As of this morning Public Health is reporting 136 confirmed local cases of COVID-19 including 30 cases now considered resolved.