Dr. Hirji recommended Niagara move to 'Grey' on Tuesday since region's situation is 'fragile'
Niagara's top doctor did provide input to the province on the region moving into the 'Grey/lockdown' zone of reopening.
Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Mustafa Hirji tells CKTB he recommended the region move to 'Grey' since the COVID-19 situation is 'pretty fragile.'
Hirji says while case numbers have dropped over past few days, Niagara till has 40 outbreaks.
Ontario announced today that 27 health units would be moving into the colour-coded framework of reopening on Tuesday, Niagara was the only region to be placed in 'Grey.'
"Some metrics such as the case numbers have looked a lot better over the past few days, it's not very long ago since they were much higher, you know we were at 60 cases just a week ago, and over 100 cases two weeks ago. We need to move a bit slowly to make sure what we've done over the last few days in sustained. How that fed into the final decision, I don't know. Perhaps that was part of the factor."
Niagara will remain in 'Grey' for at least two weeks. Click here to see what you can and can't do in the lockdown phase starting Tuesday.
Director of Infectious Diseases at Niagara Health, Dr. Karim Ali supported Dr. Hirji's decision.
Hi Niagara.The news today about us staying “grey”in the coming weeks is not what a lot of us wanted to hear.Totally understand how tough this is for so many.We have come through this again and shown resilience in face of adversity.We have one of the highest number of deaths in ON . I know a lot will say it’s easy for someone like me to mention this when so many are struggling. Please understand that our numbers have started to improve no doubt, but this has just happened, need some more time before things get better to a point where reopening is safe. We must take this time to vaccinate and protect as many high risk individuals we can. Hopefully vaccine supply will be restored all over. Thankfully surveillance for new variants is ongoing and there is more confidence that these vaccines are OK against the variants. I know this sucks, but there is hope and light at the end of this. We must stick together and give it our best like we have. Remember to be kind, everyone is going through a battle. Please listen to our MOH @mustafahirji & @NRPublicHealth . Will get through this together.
— Karim Ali (@NHBugBusterDoc) February 12, 2021
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