Niagara's top doctor is asking residents, once again, to stay within their own households as much as possible.
Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Mustafa Hirji says the region needs to get through the next two months before life can 'recalibrate.'
"Over the last three weeks we have definitely seen the numbers creep up at least a little bit. Things are definitely heading in the wrong direction, at least slowly. We're seeing the provincial numbers heading up as well so I think we need to have a couple more months where we really buckle down, limit our social contacts, venture out only for essential purposes until we have enough vaccine out there and the weather helping us."
Hirji also says using the 'emergency brake,' a measure to put areas back into lockdown, on only Niagara would not work to drastically reduce the caseload.
"When we were in Grey earlier, about a month ago, we started to see our numbers go up here in Niagara and I think that's because you can't just treat Niagara as a single unit. There's so much travel between us and surrounding regions. We've also seen in places like Toronto and Peel when they've been in lockdown that hasn't controlled their numbers. The only way our numbers get controlled are when the entire region goes into a lockdown together," he explains. "I really think if the emergency brake is going to be used it kind of needs to be done in the entire Golden Horseshoe so that we actually get the benefit from it, otherwise it might actually just be inflicting economic pain with only minimal benefit of controlling COVID."
Click here to listen to Hirji's full interview with Tim Denis.