With the Victoria Day holiday weekend just around the corner, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is urging the public to continue to follow all COVID-19 restrictions.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Wajid Ahmed says the region has been doing well with cases generally trending down, but that could all be ruined if residents choose to host large gatherings over the long weekend.
Ahmed says activities need to be kept to members from the same household.
"The general messaging is always to stick to your household contacts. With the warmer weather and beautiful temperatures, spend time outside, but closer to your home not with anyone else and definitely not any gathering of any sort," he says.
If you do go to enjoy the outdoors, Ahmed says do it right.
"Try to enjoy the temperature, the long weekend in a safe manner. That's critical because if we don't do it we will struggle with the case rates, we will struggle with even our vaccine effectiveness," he says.
Ahmed is reminding everyone, even if you're vaccinated, you could still spread the virus.
"Please don't consider yourself immune and protected just by getting the vaccine. You still have to follow some of these public health measures and it's important that all of us do that to keep ourselves safe and keep our community safe," he adds.
The current stay-at-home order, which restricts all indoor and outdoor social gatherings except for members of the same household, is in place until June 2.