A glimpse at the fall

Jeff Green | Jun 02, 2021

At the most recent KFLAPH press briefing, Dr. Moore said a few things about what we might expect to see in terms of regulations and advice from Public Health for our communities into the fall and winter.

A day later, when it came out that Moore is taking on the role of Medical Officer of Health for Ontario within a month, some of those comments took on broader implications.

Essentially, he is optimistic that better days are ahead as far as COVID is concerned.

Once we achieve a “70 to 90 per cent vaccination rate” we will become a COVID resistant population, and opening our borders to travellers from other, less vaccinated countries, will not bring a significant risk to us.

All three of the vaccines that are in use, the Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca, are capable of creating what Moore called “Sterile Immunity” in many people. These people will have such a high level of immunity that they will resist the virus, to the extent that they will be unwelcome hosts for the virus, and it cannot be passed on by them.

“I feel confident that Canada will have one of the highest vaccination rates, globally, and this will make a big difference for us,” he said.

But along with this optimism, Moore is very cautious. KFL&A was the second jurisdiction in Ontario to bring in a mask order last June. The order was made in response to an outbreak, but Moore made it clear at the time that it was something he had already been planning to implement, and that it was not going away quickly.

Last week, he said that he would recommend keeping the mask order in place, no matter what the COVID numbers are, at least through the fall, in order to suppress the spike in infections and flu that start up “around the third week of September.”

“We want to keep infections that mimic COVID to a minimum this fall,” he said.

He then looked further into the future, saying that masking might be necessary through the winter, so that our health system is “able to recover and catch up on all of the essential treatments for cancer and other diseases.

Maintaining a provincial mask order, or encouraging masking by other means, all the way through the winter, might be something that he will recommend.

He was also clear last week that opening up schools to in-class learning, in regions like ours where the COVID caseload is low, is a good idea.

“The risk of infection from in-class learning is very low now,” he said, “schools can be reopened safely in our region.”

This is something that Dr. Williams, the current provincial medical officer of health, has been recommending.

And finally, on a local note, a timeline is emerging for a transition from the mass vaccination clinics to a pharmacy and primary care based delivery.

The mass clinics will stay open as long as they are busy, but sometime in late September, once we are well into second dose delivery, he expects that Public Health will turn the facilities back over to the municipalities, in time for hockey next winter.