Well, how confused are you now?

Let's simplify. Most of the province stays in lock down with the present emergency orders now being extended to Feb. 16th. That means, for most of us, nothing changes.... for now. In the coming weeks, the province will progressively move more regions back into the colour-coded system, which includes the green, yellow, orange, red and grey "lockdown" stages. In these health units, Hastings Prince Edward Public Health Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health Renfrew County and District Health Unit, the stay at home orders will be lifted on Feb 9th and they are moving right to green, the least restrictive category in the colour-coded provincial system. Good for them. That means there is hope for us. After the 16th, all areas except Toronto, Peel and York will go back to the colour-coded system with categories in each area determined by several metrics: The number of cases/100,000 The percent positivity The R value For example, if the numbers in the Guelph-Wellington-Dufferin public health unit continue to decline this week ( only 22 new cases today) we could move to the Orange ( Restrict ) category which requires: A Weekly incidence rate is 25 to 39.9 per 100,000 (we are presently at 45 cases/100,000) A % positivity is 1.3-2.4% ( we are presently at 3.6 % positivity) It is more likely that we will be moved into the Red category. This is the link to our public health unit's COVID-19 status report where you can follow these numbers if you'd like. https://www.wdgpublichealth.ca/your-health/covid-19-information-public/status-cases-wdg Click here for a nice overview of Ontario's colour coded COVID-19 framework: https://bit.ly/2OjvmVg In Toronto and Peel and York regions the present stay at home order is set to stay in effect until at least Feb. 22. Sorry about his guys. It is confusing. But the details will become more clear in the coming days. Whatever colour category your region ends up in either next week or the week after, we must be careful of these new COVID-19 variants which are much easier to spread. Please, please wear a good quality three layer mask that fits well, middle layer polypropylene, or a level 2 surgical mask. It is much better for the environment to wear a three layer cloth mask than a surgical mask and we should leave as many surgical masks for the healthcare system as possible. That's all for tonight. Tonnes of questions about vaccines, their roll out in this country and their effectiveness against the South African variant and the UK variant. There is no strong evidence yet that the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will have trouble with these new variants. In Canada, the Johnson and Johnson and the AstraZeneca vaccines are not approved for use by Health Canada but we are expecting one of them to be approved in the coming days. We've got you covered with vaccines. Be prepared for a massive roll out starting in April. Guelph will be in a position to immunize up to 10,000 people a day. Be proud of that folks. I am amazed at the incredible organizations and groups that are stepping up to create mass vaccinations clinics. Your 'job' remains the same; stay at home for another week unless you are in the public health units that are moving to green. Wear a mask. Stay healthy and hopeful and stay tuned. Tomorrow night folks, our next webinar is set to start at 7 pm. Click here to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_XuJ1MXtMSnaM1JV4FJ9hmw These webinars are hosted by Bracelet of Hope. Dr. Nicola Mercer, the medical officer of health for WDG will join us. We will answer as many questions as we can. Helen Fishburn will assist us with how to remain strong, how to build on resilience and where to reach out for help. See you tomorrow night. Anne-Marie Please share.

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