Medical Officer of Health Dr. Joyce Lock Issues A Statement On Recent Rise In Cases

Wednesday, 29 July 2020 at 18:45

Medical Officer of Health Dr. Joyce Lock issued a statement regarding the recent rise in cases of COVID-19 in the Southwestern Public Health region.

OXFORD/ELGIN/ST.THOMAS - Medical Officer of Health Joyce Lock issued the following statement today regarding the rise of cases of COVID-19 in the Southwestern Public Health region.

Southwestern Public Health is advising the community to continue to follow public health measures in response to a recent increase in cases across the region. Our team is conducting a thorough contact tracing process to manage and contain these cases.

The current cases range from individuals, to households, to workplaces. They're not all connected to one specific event or source of transmission.

This underscores the importance of following public health advice for physical distancing, wearing a face covering when you can't physically distance, keeping your hands and high-touch surfaces clean, and only having close contact with people in your social circle (maximum of 10). I cannot stress this enough.

The community is also reminded of the Class Order Section 22 issued on July 23rd that requires individuals to self-isolate if asked to by public health. This is an enforceable directive.

Self-isolation means you must stay home for a
full 14 days and cannot leave for any reason, including grocery shopping or running errands. Please ask family or neighbours to drop off items at your doorstep and do not open the door to greet them.

I want to caution speculation for where transmission is taking place. This virus can be anywhere. It is everyone’s collective responsibility to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Southwestern Public Health has a responsibility and obligation to respect the privacy and identity of individuals.

We also have a responsibility to protect the community from the spread of COVID-19. As such, we provide age range, gender and municipality for our cases to help inform the community about the number of cases and risks we are managing.