As the province gets set to enter a second COVID-19-related state of emergency, the acting medical officer of health for Northumberland County says more focus needs to be made on limiting travel.
Haliburton-Kawartha Pine Ridge Acting MOH Dr. Ian Gemmill told a virtual media conference on Wednesday that he “fully supports” Ontario’s stay at home order as a means to cut back the spread of the Coronavirus.
“We’re in a race against the virus. We need to get it controlled so that we can get vaccines into arms and protect people before they are exposed to this. So travel outside of one’s own local community should not be undertaken because it can transfer the virus to a place where there isn’t too much activity, from a place where there is.”
Dr. Gemmill says people who unknowingly spread the virus not only turns into others getting sick, but also to overcrowding in hospitals, which impacts the care and services to patients with other illnesses or needs.
As far as the vaccine goes, Dr. Gemill says it seems the first doses for Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge should arrive in early February.
At that point, he says phase one of the vaccination program would begin, inoculating health care workers, long term care staff and chronically ill individuals, with phase two to follow in the spring if he’s being optimistic.
“Our commitment is to get vaccines into arms as fast as we can once we have access to it. I hope that by this time next year, or even earlier maybe even by autumn of this year, we won’t be back to normal completely because I don’t think Coronavirus is going to go away, but I think we will be back to some better degree of normalcy. It won’t be soon, we’re talking weeks, but it is coming.”
Phase one would include health care workers, long term care staff and older, chronically ill people, with phase two eventually including anyone who wants to get the vaccine.
Gemmill added that the health unit is “dusting off their mass immunization plans” to make sure they can inoculate as many people as possible, as fast as possible.
