WELLINGTON COUNTY – As COVID cases continue to climb in Wellington County, the county warden said they are ramping up efforts to keep the region out of red zone restrictions.
During opening remarks at Thursday’s remote county council meeting, warden Kelly Linton recalled that in the early months of the pandemic the county had relatively few cases of COVID.
“That all changed pretty drastically a couple of weeks ago,” Linton said to council.
He noted that the county has more than 60 confirmed active cases which is more than the other two regions in the WDG Public Health region—Dufferin County and the City of Guelph.
“Unfortunately, Wellington County is pulling our whole region into red.”
He said the mayors and CAOs in the county as well as WDG Public Health and OPP Inspector Paul Richardson met on Monday.
Linton said a few key actions they are taking include ramping up the urgency in the messaging to the community on both traditional and social media channels.
The mayors have also volunteered to do radio ads to get the message across.
He also pointed out that public health will soon be providing COVID case data by municipality rather than just an overall Wellington County case count.
He said this can make their efforts more targeted to harder hit communities.
“Public health is also going to be working with the OPP to coordinate targeted enforcement in some of these hot spots we’re seeing,” Linton said. “That’s with support of member municipalities.”
He encouraged all members of county council to get involved in spreading county messages and communications about stopping this upward trend.
“We need to get a real direct and consistent message out there that we need to follow a few simple rules to work together to stop the spread to stay out of red,” Linton said.
“Dr. Mercer does believe that’s possible, but only if we act decisively and act really fast.”
