Lambton’s medical officer of health says we have to “move the goalposts” and start thinking about how to live with COVID-19.

Dr. Sudit Ranade spoke to Lambton County councillors Wednesday saying right now the pandemic is “grumbling along” with a manageable number of cases. And he says the number of cases we are seeing now are in a lower age group who have mild cases of the disease, so no one has been hospitalized or died in two months.

Around the world there is a race for a vaccine for COVID-19, but Ranade told councillors there has never been a vaccine created for any strain of corona virus, including SARS which ravaged Toronto more than a decade ago.

So, the MOH says, we have to start learning to live with COVID-19.

“The full closure of society is unsustainable, but a full return to everything we used to do is also not sustainable from a disease management perspective,” says Ranade.

“It’s about getting a balance; balancing protections with opening societies, reviewing responses in other places to find out what works, what doesn’t work and why and have as much of our society function as normally and as safely as possible, which is important to recognize is not a zero risk proposition.”

Ranade says Canadians have accepted flu as apart of their normal lives and we have to move toward that with COVID-19.

“There will be cases there will be there will be ongoing incidents of COVID-19,” he says. “It’s about keeping it at a manageable level, as opposed to having a zero (cases) or having it (the virus becoming) overwhelming.”

Ranade says we have to “use what we know to try to shift our goals away from preventing all transmission and toward keeping transmission manageable, protecting vulnerable people, and preventing severe outcomes like hospitalization and death.”

Ranade says there are a couple of areas which will require special attention.

The reopening of schools is a concern. The MOH told councillors public health is developing a rapid response team to send to schools if there is a problem. Ranade has actively been meeting with administrators from the public and separate school boards to give advice on back to school.

Ranade says there also has to be a plan for seniors who have had difficulty with isolation, should there be a second wave of COVID-19. “In the UK, they had this concept called shielding or cocooning, which was to take people of known high risk and enable them to isolate themselves with social and clinical support,” he says.

Ranade says the health care sector also has to prepare. Cold and flu season is coming and many of the symptoms mimic COVID-19 symptoms. When someone is sick, he says, COVID-19 will have to be ruled out first.

“We’ve had active conversations around reformatting what the COVID-19 assessment centers look like to to incorporate … coughs and colds and flus, many of which will not be COVID-19. But in order to assess them, you have to have the right PPE (personal protective equipment) and all of the equipment to to rule out COVID-19.

“You basically need to be able to do a test at the same time as you need to be able to assess the the respiratory illness. So, there’s ongoing discussions within the … the health system group with regards to how to reframe the assessment centers to make them more sustainable and to handle that load in the fall.”