Variants of COVID-19 could become the dominant strains by March, according to Windsor Regional Hospital's chief of staff.
On Thursday, Dr. Wassim Saad told the board of directors the variants have proven to be far more contagious and could be the catalyst for a third wave of COVID-19 — but there are several factors that can avert another outbreak.
"That's going to be dependant on, can we get the mass vaccination rollout into effect and vaccinate as many people as we can, can we continue to follow public health measures without getting that pandemic fatigue that we saw that led to wave two ... and are those vaccines going to be effective against some of these variants," he says.
If residents commit to public health guidelines for as long as it takes, Saad says it won't matter which variant becomes dominant.
"These variants are still transmitted in the exact same way. The virus hasn't mutated into a different virus. It's still a coronavirus and it's still spread through respiratory droplets," he says. "Public health measure are effective at preventing transmission, so they have to be maintained."
Saad says falling COVID-19 numbers in Windsor-Essex show pandemic measures are working, so he's asking everyone to hold on until the job is done.