KITCHENER -- The Region of Waterloo’s top doctor says that, while the area’s COVID-19 caseload has been meeting orange level criteria recently, it’s not enough to loosen any restrictions for now.
Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang gave the update to regional council Wednesday night and added this was the first time since November that Waterloo Region has met this criteria.
The numbers, however, have only been on par for the past few days with what’s required for an Ontario region to be in the orange ‘restrict’ zone.
“Generally, what the province likes to see is approximately two weeks at a lower level,” said Dr. Wang. “So roughly two weeks of indicators in the orange zone before it would move a region from red to orange.
“I would not expect any changes to our zone this week.”
She says the province is being more cautious about moving regions down into less restrictive sections of the colour-coded framework than moving them up into more restrictive sections.
Dr. Wang adds that variants are also still a concern, but Waterloo Region’s variant levels have been lower than the provincial level.
