KITCHENER -- The Ontario government extended the stay-at-home order in most of the province on Monday as it begins to prepare it for reopening.

The province will revert to its colour-tiered reopening framework after the stay-at-home order ends. In Waterloo Region, that's on Feb. 16.

In an emailed statement, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said that she expected to learn more about where the region will be placed "in the coming days." Before the province's lockdown on Dec. 26, the region was in the red "control" tier.

While we don't know exactly where the region will be placed yet, the province has a number of indicators shared on its website to give some idea. Here's a look at how Waterloo Region fits in the province's colour-coded reopening framework.

Weekly incidence rate:

The region has seen 328 cases in the past week and has a population of just under 594,000, according to Statistics Canada. That makes for a weekly incidence rate of about 55.2 cases per 100,000 people. That would place the region in the red "control" tier; the threshold for red is currently 40 or more cases per 100,000 people per week.

Positivity rate:

The region's current positivity rate is 3.5 per cent. While that's a significant improvement from 11.8 per cent on Jan. 10, it remains in the province's red tier. The threshold is 2.5 per cent positivity.

Note: the region's positivity rate is updated on Tuesdays and Fridays. As of Tuesday, Feb. 9, the positivity rate was 2.5 per cent, which would be the minimum threshold of the red "control" category. The threshold for the orange "restrict" category is 1.3 to 2.4 per cent positivity.

Median effective reproduction estimate:

The reproduction estimate in the region has been at or below 1.0 since mid-January. At 0.8 new cases per active case in the population, the region would be in the green "prevent" tier. The threshold for yellow is 1.0.

Note: the following parameters for the red "control" tier do not have specific numerical thresholds. Therefore, the analysis does not include a colour placement.

Repeated outbreaks in multiple sectors and settings:

There are currently 19 active outbreaks in retirement and long-term care homes, while five different sectors have active outbreaks.

Increasing number of large outbreaks:

Public health officials last declared outbreaks that reached double-digit case numbers back on Jan. 21, the region's online dashboard shows.

One was at St. Luke's Place LTC, where 22 people got COVID-19, and the other was at Derbecker's Heritage House LTC, where 11 people got sick.

Level of community transmission cases increasing:

After increasing drastically since the fall, the community cases curve appears to be flattening.

Cases attributed to community spread have more than quadrupled since the fall, rising from 673 on Nov. 7 to 2,956 on Feb. 7. In the past two weeks, however, the region's dashboard shows that there have only been 204 community cases.

Hospital and ICU capacity at risk of being overwhelmed:

Almost a month ago, local hospitals reported that they were running low on ICU space. That day, public health officials reported that there were 28 people with COVID-19 at local hospitals, including 14 people in the ICU.

As of Monday, Waterloo Region had 32 people in hospital, including 12 who are in the ICU.

PH unit capacity for case and contact management at risk of being overwhelmed:

Dr. Wang said the rapid increase in positive cases in early December resulted in surge strategies to meet the provincial target of contacting people who tested positive within 24 hours.

"The provincial restrictions coupled with our community’s commitment to public health measures have resulted in a decrease in daily case rates and a stabilization of case and contact management," a statement from Dr. Wang said in part.