After nearly two months of COVID-19 closures and restrictions, Lambton's medical officer of health is talking for the first time about opening things up a little.
Dr. Sudit Ranade told Sue Storr on CHOK (103.9 FM, 1070 AM) Monday that the province's cautious staged approach seems reasonable.
"I think it's probably about time to open things up a little bit because we need to sort of see what's going to happen in terms of the impact on COVID in the community and the hospital," said Ranade. "So it's reasonable to start doing some of these things. I think they're doing it in a way that tries to protect people as much as possible."
Dr. Ranade said it's time to start thinking about how we incorporate this into the way we live, rather than completely trying to shield ourselves from it.
"I think this is a problem that we're going to be dealing with either in the foreground or in the background for many months, either until there's an effective treatment or until there's an effective vaccine or both. Certainly, we look at that local data but also provincially they look at that data, to determine how can they open things up and what's the plan when they open up to monitor ICU beds and other indicators around the disease."
The medical officer of health stressed the importance of continuing the protective measures like physical distancing, saying there's enough evidence to show that they're working in flattening the curve.
-With files from Sue Storr