Huron Perth Public HealthHuron Perth Public Health
Midwestern

Hospital capacity key factor in COVID-19 recovery

The Medical Officer of Health for Huron Perth Public Health says there is a target that could possibly trigger moving to the next phase of the recovery from COVID-19.

Dr. Miriam Klassen held one of the health unit's weekly Facebook sessions on Tuesday, providing updates from the provincial level and the province's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams.

"Dr. Williams had indicated that once the number of cases got consistently into the 200's that it would be considering the next phase. And watching several different kinds of indicators, one of which is public health capacity, so the capacity across the Province for public health units to do case and contact management," said Klassen.

Klassen points out that several other factors would enter into the decision.

"Hospital capacity was one of the pieces we were monitoring because if you start to relax measures you can expect that there may be more hospitalizations and we still don't want our hospitals to become overwhelmed. So those are measures that are being followed," added Klassen.

Another factor would be public health capacity. That's the capacity across the Province for public health units to do case and contact management and that has been greatly enhanced in Huron and Perth over the last few months.

Klassen says those are just some of the things that have to monitored so that adjustments can be made, if necessary.

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