The Medical Officer of Health for Huron and Perth points out that Premier Doug Ford has said nothing is off the table as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to increase.
But Dr. Miriam Klassen said the number of cases doesn't tell the whole story. She added that when the first wave hit Ontario, testing capacity was limited.
“In our first wave in Ontario, when our testing capacity was limited, we were not testing all symptomatic people. We had testing criteria to manage the resources that we had and make sure that our testing strategy gave us the most bang for the buck really,” said Dr. Klassen.
But she said they can now test more widely and they're doing that.
“Now we can test far more widely and we are. So we're testing a lot of asymptomatic people, but we're also testing symptomatic people, even with mild symptoms. So the cases that we're seeing now are probably showing the majority of the cases that are out there,” added Dr. Klassen.
She said, so far COVID seems to be impacting a young demographic. But she said they also have to look at other indicators like hospitalizations and deaths and those tend to lag behind confirmed cases.