The Medical Officer of Health for Windsor-Essex thinks the region will be placed in red zone when the province's Stay at Home Order expires next Tuesday.
"Right now based on our case rates, we are in the red zone unless things change in the next few days before the provincial announcement," says Dr. Wajid Ahmed.
He says it's still unknown when the province will make the announcement but he's anticipating Friday.
Windsor-Essex has been in the grey lockdown zone since mid-December.
Prior to that, the area was in the red zone for two weeks.
"Based on that framework the case rates are already suggesting that we're still in the high red zone and we're no where close yellow or green zone," says Dr. Ahmed. "So it will take us some time to get to the point and I'm confident we can get there."
He's asking the public to continue to follow public health safety measures.
"The more and more people understand the importance and the benefits of following these public health measures, I'm confident that eventually we'll get to yellow or green or to a place where we will have as much as normalcy as possible we can get in this pandemic," says Dr. Ahmed.
When the Stay at Home Order is lifted, the province is shifting back to its COVID-19 Response Framework.
The framework was introduced in the fall and features colour-coded zones based on a number of factors including case rates.