Sarnia's mayor says "we should just start ticketing people" who refuse to take the COVID-19 outbreak seriously.
Mike Bradley, in an interview with Sue Storr on CHOK (103.9 FM, 1070 AM) Friday morning, said there are some who are still not following instructions including social distancing.
"The city enforcement people were out a couple of days ago, going up to people at the different playground equipment, and they were there in clusters of three, and six and eight," said Bradley. "We're trying to educate them but it's my belief that hasn't worked."
Residents have been told to keep their children away from park playground equipment to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The mayor said, ideally, enforcement should be driven from Ottawa.
"I would prefer that we see provincial, or more positive in my view, federal legislation, using the powers that they have. Then it's universal from sea to sea. If not, then the province should do it so it's consistent. We have 11 municipalities in Lambton County so you can see that you could have one doing this and one doing that."
Bradley said the city may have to consider closing parks and shutting down the transit system.
"Windsor is shutting down its transit system in the next couple of days, and what do we do then with our transit system? It's a very necessary service for people. It's one though that also is open to spreading contamination. And that's the type of judgement call that we're in power to do and we will make them, but I don't know at what point to get across to people how serious this is," he said.
Lambton Medical Officer of Health Dr. Sudit Ranade said Friday that he certainly expects more positive cases in the county in the days and weeks ahead.
"In terms of Lambton County, we've just started identifying cases, so I would say at the local level, we're just starting on the curve," said Ranade. "Even though I've been saying for weeks now that there's probably virus circulating in the community, it does take time for the lab results to catch up to what we think is happening."
Bluewater Health's website Friday morning said there were seven COVID-19 patients in hospital and four in ICU.
-With files from Sue Storr
