The Medical Officer of Health for Windsor-Essex is once again sending a strong message to the community.
During the health unit's daily COVID-19 briefing on Monday, Dr. Wajid Ahmed voiced his concerns with the way area residents are dealing with the lockdown and with the way residents have been following public health safety measures.
After reporting more than 2,000 COVID-19 cases in Windsor-Essex since Christmas Day, Dr. Ahmed says "everyone is doing it wrong."
"Every time when we are hearing, 'oh I was just doing it this way because we feel that it was okay,' no it was not okay," says Dr. Ahmed. "Plain and simple, I think that's the bottom line, everyone who is doing something they think that maybe they think they are doing things safely and others are not and I want to take this moment and say no, everyone is doing it wrong."
He says the message is simple.
"The message is stay home," says Dr. Ahmed. "Don't do anything that you don't need to do. You do not need to meet anyone, you do not need to go for any other non-essential visits or anything that you need to do," he says. "That's the only way we can bring these case counts to a number that can be manageable for our region."
Dr. Ahmed says the blame will not be put on the health unit if cases continue to increase.
"It is not me, it is not the health unit who would be responsible if the cases continue to increase in our region and if there's any complications or any impact it would have in our community, in our businesses as a community moving forward, it is not us," he says.
According to Dr. Ahmed, the health unit is now starting to see cases of possible exposure from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day gatherings along with other gatherings prior to Christmas.