CORNWALL – As the Thanksgiving weekend arrives, the area’s top doctor said that residents need to adhere to the public health guidance and calls by officials to have a small Thanksgiving this year.
“We want to keep the spread down,” said EOHU medical officer of health Dr. Paul Roumeliotis. “I know it’s tough, we’re all tired of this.”
Roumeliotis told journalists during his October 8th media briefing that numbers continue to climb, and that many of the new cases in the region are in the Prescott-Russell area. Some of the increase has been attributed to parties and group settings, the remainder from travel to Quebec or people working in Ottawa and the surrounding area.
He said that instead of visiting family or holding family functions, that people should try to connect to those outside of their household in different ways like video chat.
For family memebers who are over 70 years old, or have medical conditions, extra precautions are recommended including mask wearing and physical distancing.
Last week, premier Doug Ford said that family events should just be with people in their own household this year. The province paused social bubbles, limiting groups to just within a household.
The restrictions come as COVID-19 infections have spiked across the province, and locally.
As of the October 8th update from the EOHU, there are 89 active cases of COVID-19 in the region, with more than half of those cases in Prescott-Russell.
South Dundas has three active cases of the virus, North Dundas has one case, Cornwall has eight cases. There are no active cases in South Stormont.
Ontario reported 797 new cases and a record high of 48,500 tests completed on Thursday.