Lambton's medical officer of health is concerned about the impending return to the province's colour-coded COVID-19 response framework.
In an interview with Sue Storr on CHOK (103.9 FM, 1070 AM) Tuesday morning, Dr. Sudit Ranade questioned the framework's effectiveness.
"I think the larger question really is how effective was that response framework at preventing transmission?," said Ranade. "Do we know of any jurisdictions that were able to successfully stay in one level of that framework? I'm not sure that there are that many examples of that, that's one of things that really concerns me."
The provincial government announced Monday its state-of-emergency won't be extended and the stay-at-home order is to end in many areas including Sarnia-Lambton on February 16. After that, each area's level of pandemic restrictions will be determined by its placement within the framework.
Dr. Ranade said it's important to review how well the colour-coded system worked the first time, and to assess changes that are proposed with its reintroduction.
The framework has been adjusted to help support small retail businesses. While in Grey-Lockdown, all retail will be allowed to open with capacity limits of 25 per cent.
Dr. Ranade said he understands the need to try to strike a solid balance between reopening and being able to do things, and preventing transmission of the virus.
"The problem is there are lots of different reasons why things are opening, many of them are driven by economy, many of them are driven by people needing to regain some sense of normalcy and really build back their livelihoods. All of those are perfectly reasonable and important things to be aiming for, but on the flip side the only thing that works against this disease is keeping people away from each other," he said.
Dr. Ranade said they know now that lockdowns work.
-With files from Sue Storr
