Sudbury and the District Public Health Service (PHSD) announced on Monday that they will postpone the calendar and implement provincial restrictions in response to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the region.  

On Monday afternoon, Health Officer Dr. Penny Sutcliffe announced this unexpected move in response to her difficult news about the increase in the number of COVID-19 infections in recent days. 

This includes reaching the milestone of more than 3,000 cases on November 5. In addition, the number of cases reported by PHSD on Monday was 122, including the number of cases on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Sutcliffe said at an online press conference: "We have seen the highest case rate in the province, not just a little bit in our region, but so far." 

She said these figures show that of all 34 health units in Ontario, Sudbury has the highest case rate. This is also the highest level in the Sudbury jurisdiction since April 2020.

Sutcliffe said that Sudbury’s COVID restriction calendar temporarily rolled back to October 9, when the reopening of Ontario’s restrictions was in the so-called third step, which meant bars, pubs, movie theaters, restaurants and even stadiums. The capacity of the venue is restricted. 

Sutcliffe said that these restrictions will take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, November 10. She added that the health department will take law enforcement seriously. She said that a notice is being issued to the business community to inform the expected situation.

Sutcliffe said the letter of instruction sent to the business community was about 18 pages long.

"However, the simple message for all businesses and operators is that if you roll back the clock to October 8, then what you do is what you need to do now. So hopefully this information will be able to comply with this," Sa Tcliffe said.

In a press release issued on Monday, Sutcliffe outlined the latest course of action. 

4) Strengthen the identification and vaccination requirements for provincial organized sports, requiring anyone who is 12 years of age and older who actively participates in organized sports (not just coaches, officials, etc.) to provide a vaccination certificate, unless medical exemptions apply. 

Sutcliffe said the new measures are intended as a "breaker" operation to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Sudbury. She said law enforcement will be based on people voluntarily following the rules.

"Of course, we certainly want to comply voluntarily," she said, adding that most business owners and service providers do this.  

"And they know that it is in their best interest to comply with this as a business and a community."

She added that a lot of consideration was taken when discussing whether this was the right action, because there were indeed concerns about compliance and community acceptance.

Sutcliffe said: "I will tell you that law enforcement is definitely a tool we will use, whether it is a public health inspector or the Department of Labor, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, the police, the regulations, all of them."

She added that the letters sent to the business community remind people that fines for non-compliance are not trivial.

"So we hope it can also act as a deterrent," Sutcliffe said.

Sudbury.com asked Sutcliffe how long this latest set of restrictions will be implemented. She said she hoped things would change in about two weeks, but then added that she really didn't want to fix the date.

"So I am very reluctant to set the date because we have been fooled many times by unexpected turns and twists during the course of this pandemic. We will track the data. So we will study our case very carefully. Rate. If this is actually an effective circuit breaker, we should see a reduction in cases in the next two weeks," Sutcliffe said.

She added that PHSD will closely monitor the situation in other parts of Ontario and what other health authorities are dealing with. She said that PHSD will pay close attention to the data, hoping that the situation will improve, but realize that if the situation gets worse, even stricter measures can be taken. 

"So we take this very, very seriously, but absolutely hope that we can turn things around," Sutcliffe said.  

In response to Sudbury.com education reporter Heidi Ulrichsen's question about the dialogue between the health department and the local school board and the status of rapid antigen testing, Sutcliffe said that these discussions are ongoing.

"So just today, we met with the Director of Education and the COVID head of the school board that has a school in Greater Sudbury. The rapid antigen test is of course a tool that can be used in any health department related to the school, if We see cases in schools or outbreaks in schools. This is a measure that can be used to test the retention strategy announced by the province," Sutcliffe said.

She added that this type of test may be particularly useful at this time.  

"In regions like ours, we have seen the spread and spread of the COVID virus increase. If appropriate, we can not only target the school where we found the case, but also usually ensure that there is no transmission that we might not know about. "Sutcliffe said.