{"id":89429,"date":"2020-09-15T17:29:20","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T21:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huntsville.dopperonline.ca\/?p=89429"},"modified":"2020-09-15T17:37:36","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T21:37:36","slug":"medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

With COVID-19 cases rising in Simcoe Muskoka\u2014and within the province as a whole\u2014Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit’s medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Gardner, is advising people to limit their contact with others outside their household as much as possible.<\/p>\n

<\/broadstreet-zone><\/strong><\/div>\n

There have been more cases in Muskoka in the first two weeks of September (seven) than in the months of July and August combined (five). In Simcoe County the number of September cases so far exceeds all of those in August for that region.<\/p>\n

That has Dr. Gardner concerned enough to advise residents to shrink their social circles. In his September 15 briefing, he recommended that people stick to their own households for close contact, or for people who live alone or who require assistance that could be one other household.<\/p>\n

“At the time that we are commencing with schools, we are also having an increase in cases and that\u2019s not a good combination at all,” he said. “…I think we need to revisit our control measures in the community. I know that there is active discussion at the province right now about additional control measures that could be in place but I would advise people at this time to actually stick with your household for close contact and essentially shrink down your social circle.”<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that many people need to be at work, and that many parents need to send their children to school, but noted that so far large workplace outbreaks have been averted due to control measures and that protocols are in place in schools to try to reduce transmission of the virus in those environments.<\/p>\n

“Those are environments that are less hazardous than what we\u2019re seeing I think in people\u2019s social lives. The great risk that remains that I believe is the underlying cause for this transmission is the connections that we make in our social lives, so that\u2019s where we need to make a change in order to bring this under control,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Control what you have control over,” Dr. Gardner added. “You can control the contact you have in your social life and that will help reduce your overall risk, and if we all do it will help reduce transmission in the community.”<\/p>\n

Still, he reminded parents to screen their children for symptoms, keep them home and report to the school if they develop symptoms, and to seek medical assessment. “That\u2019s critically important in order to avoid exposures in the school environment.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Gardner has also recommended that people return to carefully considering when and where they go out, to avoid large, unregulated gatherings of people, and to maintain two-metres distance at all times. And, of course, to practise other control measures like frequent handwashing and wearing a mask in indoor public places.<\/p>\n

He said that within Muskoka, residents need to take note of the recent uptick in cases.<\/p>\n

“I think it\u2019s important for people to note transmission in their community,” he said. “I think it\u2019s very important for people in Muskoka to know that although your rates have been considerably lower [than Simcoe]\u2026more recently you are experiencing an increase in rate, as is Simcoe, as is the Greater Toronto Area and much of Ontario. Your rates are going up, the risk is going up, the potential for transmission through contact in the community is going up.”<\/p>\n

The big question on the minds of many is, has a second wave begun?<\/p>\n

“I think we need to respond as though it has. It is on a sharp upward swing. It\u2019s reflective of the levels of COVID-19 that we had even in Stage 1 of the province reopening,” said Dr. Gardner. “There is certainly an inertia that comes with an upswing in cases. There\u2019s the cases you know about now and then there\u2019s those that we don\u2019t know about yet that are incubating that will show up in our numbers in a week or two from now…Even if we do a really good job now of breaking the chain of transmission, we\u2019re going to see an upswing for a while before it comes back down again. The cases that are transmitting right now will emerge, and what we\u2019d be preventing by acting now is the cases that follow them. … If we don’t [act now] it has all the potential of becoming a substantial second wave.”<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on Doppler!<\/h5>\n

Sign up here<\/u><\/a> to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
\nLocal news in your inbox three times per week!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With COVID-19 cases rising in Simcoe Muskoka\u2014and within the province as a whole\u2014Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit’s medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Gardner, is advising people to limit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1903,"featured_media":89430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMedical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household - Huntsville Doppler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household - Huntsville Doppler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With COVID-19 cases rising in Simcoe Muskoka\u2014and within the province as a whole\u2014Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit’s medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Gardner, is advising people to limit [...]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Huntsville Doppler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HuntsvilleDoppler\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-09-15T21:29:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-09-15T21:37:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"356\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dawn Huddlestone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Hville_Doppler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Hville_Doppler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dawn Huddlestone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dawn Huddlestone\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/person\/d5d919046b2224f1b6b8bc9c585ff4a3\"},\"headline\":\"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-09-15T21:29:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-09-15T21:37:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/\"},\"wordCount\":784,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/\",\"name\":\"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household - Huntsville Doppler\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-09-15T21:29:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-09-15T21:37:36+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg\",\"width\":750,\"height\":356,\"caption\":\"(Graphics: cbc.ca)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/\",\"name\":\"Huntsville Doppler\",\"description\":\"Read Local\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Huntsville Doppler\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2025\/03\/logo-Canadian-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2025\/03\/logo-Canadian-1.jpg\",\"width\":760,\"height\":212,\"caption\":\"Huntsville Doppler\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HuntsvilleDoppler\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/Hville_Doppler\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/huntsville_doppler\/\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/person\/d5d919046b2224f1b6b8bc9c585ff4a3\",\"name\":\"Dawn Huddlestone\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/author\/dawn\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household - Huntsville Doppler","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household - Huntsville Doppler","og_description":"With COVID-19 cases rising in Simcoe Muskoka\u2014and within the province as a whole\u2014Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit’s medical officer of health, Dr. Charles Gardner, is advising people to limit [...]","og_url":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/","og_site_name":"Huntsville Doppler","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HuntsvilleDoppler\/","article_published_time":"2020-09-15T21:29:20+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-09-15T21:37:36+00:00","og_image":[{"width":750,"height":356,"url":"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Dawn Huddlestone","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Hville_Doppler","twitter_site":"@Hville_Doppler","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dawn Huddlestone","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/"},"author":{"name":"Dawn Huddlestone","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/person\/d5d919046b2224f1b6b8bc9c585ff4a3"},"headline":"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household","datePublished":"2020-09-15T21:29:20+00:00","dateModified":"2020-09-15T21:37:36+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/"},"wordCount":784,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg","articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-CA","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/","url":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/","name":"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household - Huntsville Doppler","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg","datePublished":"2020-09-15T21:29:20+00:00","dateModified":"2020-09-15T21:37:36+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-CA","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-CA","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2020\/09\/Household-social-circle-cbc.jpg","width":750,"height":356,"caption":"(Graphics: cbc.ca)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/medical-officer-of-health-advises-people-to-limit-social-connection-to-own-household\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medical officer of health advises people to limit social connection to own household"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#website","url":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/","name":"Huntsville Doppler","description":"Read Local","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-CA"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#organization","name":"Huntsville Doppler","url":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-CA","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2025\/03\/logo-Canadian-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/media-doppleronline-ca.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com\/2025\/03\/logo-Canadian-1.jpg","width":760,"height":212,"caption":"Huntsville Doppler"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HuntsvilleDoppler\/","https:\/\/x.com\/Hville_Doppler","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/huntsville_doppler\/"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/#\/schema\/person\/d5d919046b2224f1b6b8bc9c585ff4a3","name":"Dawn Huddlestone","url":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/author\/dawn\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}