By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
One sign of progress in the fight against COVID-19 is that her periodic updates to council are getting shorter, Cobourg Chief Administrative Officer Tracey Vaughan said at Monday’s committee-of-the-whole meeting.
The Emergency Control Group continues to meet weekly to assess conditions and issue announcements about loosening restrictions.
Province-wide, capacity limits in public settings are gone, as is the requirement for proof of vaccination for venues like restaurants.
“I am really pleased for our business community,” Vaughan said.
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Keiran Moore says he will soon switch from weekly updates to as-needed updates. Dr. Moore also said that declining COVID numbers means an end to the mask mandate at some future time, possibly by the end of March.
But it’s not clear sailing – they are still keeping an eye on the latest COVID subvariant, which is supposed to be 30% more transmissible. And Dr. Moore acknowledges that the numbers of infections is much higher than reported, due to changes in testing procedures.
“When you are navigating your community, do everything you can to keep safe and help others to be safe,” she urged.
She noted that Canada has just approved the Novavax vaccine, and Ontario can expect its first shipment of about 380 doses in mid-March – which would be a couple of weeks after local mass-immunization clinics closed at the end of February. You can still get shots at the Port Hope office of the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit on a walk-in basis, Vaughan said.
In Cobourg, municipal services are open to residents on an in-person basis again – with on-line and phone assistance offered to those who still wish to observe more stringent COVID precautions.
“Thank you to our community,” Vaughan said.
“It has been an incredibly long two years, and it’s hit all of us in different ways. We have pulled together and we have done the right things, and we are so looking forward to having people back in our buildings and having events again.”
