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Mayor’s Message on COVID-19 – September 15, 2020

Mayor’s Message on COVID-19 – September 15, 2020

Hello everyone, week 26 for my messages.

Another week where the COVID news is not encouraging. As of yesterday, an average of 618 new cases have been reported daily in Canada over the last 7 days. In particular, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia are showing rapid increases. Ontario reported 313 new cases yesterday, which is the highest daily case count since early June. Health Minister Christine Elliott called this most recent spike a ‘disturbing and significant increase’.

While some form of second wave was predicted and expected, a further complication will be that we are about to enter our normal flu season. The spike in Ontario’s numbers, so far, has been in our largest urban centres (Toronto, Peel and Ottawa). If we do not continue to respect public health guidelines, rural Ontario could see large increases as well.

The province of Ontario last week announced a four week pause on any further relaxing of pandemic restrictions and on Monday Premier Ford announced that returning to some form of lockdown is not off the table.

Within our own public health unit, three new cases were identified today from the Greater Sudbury area with unknown sources of infection. Manitoulin Island and its inhabitants. both permanent and visitors, have done a good job overall of staying safe. The long-term challenge will be to continue doing the things that have worked and not become complacent.

Stay the course everyone.

Thank you,

Ian