KITCHENER -- Inspect, educate, enforce.

The role of public health inspectors has changed throughout the pandemic.

In the beginning, when non-essential businesses shut down, Bruce Miano fielded calls from the public about COVID-19.

As most businesses enter the province’s third stage of reopening, Miano is back to conducting inspections of different facilities.

“Food premises, nail salons, migrant farms, small drinking water systems, child care centres,” said Miano. “In particular, I deal with suspected outbreaks of COVID-19 in various work settings that are a little outside of the domain where we’d normally be inspecting.”

“If we think there might be a suspect cluster we’ll first get a lay of the land and see what sort of infection prevention control measures they already have in place,” said Miano.

Masks are now mandatory in indoor public spaces and on Grand River Transit in the Region of Waterloo until Sept. 30. However, Miano says the most important measure is keeping staff and customers two metres apart.

“Is the setting set up to allow its workers to physically distance? As well as cleaning and disinfection practices, the use of personal protective equipment if necessary, and lastly just that there’s a way for contact tracing to happen in the event that we do have a confirmed positive case,” said Miano.

Public health inspectors are educating business owners and looking for the usual infractions, so they’re spending more time on-site. Miano is also spending more time managing potential outbreaks in workplace settings that weren’t part of his pre-pandemic role.

“I’m finding that the inspections take a little more time to provide that education,” said Miano. “And for the types of places that we never were involved with before, it might mean some collaboration with the Ministry of Labour or other stakeholders to figure out what the best strategy is for that particular workplace.”

Miano wears personal protective equipment during inspections and writes reports off-site with a lot more communication over the phone. He worries that as more businesses reopen we could see an increase in community transmission as more people spend more time indoors.

“Our messaging is to not relax. We have to keep the good fight going,” said Miano. “Because on the flipside, until you know someone who’s been affected and see the devastating consequences, you might not appreciate how that extra chit chat at lunchtime, just the butterfly effect that may cause.”