When the lockdown lifts, we’ll be in a “totally different place” this time around, believes Dr. Nicola Mercer, medical officer of health for Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, pointing to increasing vaccination rates combined with ongoing community efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“Keep your eye on the prize,” she said during a special instalment of the Finding the Balance During COVID-10 webinar series developed by Bracelet of Hope and hosted by the Canadian Mental Health Association of Waterloo-Wellington on Tuesday evening. “I do believe this will be our last lockdown.”
The provincial stay-at-home order is currently slated to expire on May 20, after being in place for six weeks. With the order came additional restrictions regarding gathering limitations, the closure of sports fields and activities, as well as reduced occupancy for stores selling essential items and the in-person closure of others.
Though the number of cases have been on the rise throughout WDG, and significantly driven by variants that are more transmittable, Mercer said she’s “starting to see a hint” that the trend is improving.
“The numbers don’t look great yet, but we were practically at a vertical climb over about a two-week period and now I see it plateauing, and that gives me hope,” she told about 12,000 people who took in the webinar. “It gives me hope that we’re starting to make an impact with people staying home and staying with their own families, because this is a disease of people – we actually can do something to stop it.”
Between April 7 and 21, Guelph saw a total of 554 new cases of COVID-19, with 191 in Wellington County, bringing those areas to 3,754 and 1,291 cases respectively since the pandemic began, WDG PH statistics show.
“This is the storm before the calm,” commented Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, who co-hosts the monthly webinar series with CMHA Waterloo-Wellington chief executive officer Helen Fishburn. “It’s a big storm. It’s probably the greatest storm we’ll have to go through with this pandemic, but it’s coming with the introduction of vaccines.”
Mercer acknowledges we’re in for a few more “tough weeks” before the trend turns around – sometime around the Victoria Day long weekend – but she’s encouraged by the vaccination rate. By May 5, she anticipates 40 per cent of Ontario residents will have received their first dose of vaccine, with that number increasing to 60 per cent by the end of the month.
“We are in better shape than we ever could have imagined at this time last year,” she said, adding she never would have believed a year ago that one, let alone four, vaccines would be available and in use, calling it “quite remarkable.”
By the end of Tuesday, 76,873 people throughout Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph had received at least one dose of vaccine (nearly one-third of the target to vaccinate 75 per cent of residents), with 84,223 total doses administered.
“All of the vaccines that are out now, they’re all really based on cutting-edge science, things that have been in the background and that have been worked on for a long time,” said Mercer, responding to reports of concerns about side effects linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“Get it if you can, if you’re eligible. It will protect you from getting serious illness from COVID-19,” added Zajdlik, noting the potential for serious side effects is between one in 250,000 and one in a million. “In medical terms, that is infinitesimally small.
“Those variants, man are they ever nasty,” she continued. “It’s heartbreaking hearing about young people who are ending up on ventilators. It’s heartbreaking hearing about what’s happening in the ICUs in the hotspot areas. And it’s heartbreaking hearing about what’s happening to the physicians and the staff that are trying to take care of these folks.”
