Waterloo region's COVID-19 rates are stable, but Dr. Wang urges caution as restrictions lift

Waterloo region continues to see "relatively low rates and stability" when it comes to new COVID-19 cases, the region's medical officer of health says.

"For the first time in 2021, our indicators are now comparable to where they were last October," Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said during a media briefing on Friday.

"Our community has made incredible strides and we have been able to limit and control the spread of COVID-19 in our community through high vaccination rates and public health measures," Wang added, but warned even with the lifting of more restrictions, people still need to be careful.

"There is still some degree of uncertainty especially as we start spending more time indoors and especially if we gather with others."

Wang noted there's still a large part of the population who are still unvaccinated: children age11 and younger.

Wang said public health officials want to see 90 per cent of the entire population vaccinated before they can think about giving the all-clear.Right now, without children vaccinated, the region has 74.72 per cent of the population with both doses.

"When government starts to lift restrictions, everyone you know, including myself, gets the impression that, 'Oh, things are less risky now,'" she said. "But we're dealing with a variant that we've seen can rapidly come back and really overwhelm the health system and then keep it in a very overwhelmed state."

8 new cases

Public health reported eight new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. There were 93 active cases, a decrease of five from Thursday, and there were nine people in the region's three hospitals infectious with the virus.

There were no new deaths reported Friday in the region. The total number of COVID-related deaths remained at 302.

There was one outbreak on the region's dashboard: A construction site where there were two cases.

The Waterloo Region District School Board issued a notice Friday afternoon that an outbreak had been declared at Queensmount Public School in Kitchener wherea student case previously reported was linked to another case in the same student cohort.