Lambton’s medical officer of health says it could take longer to control COVID-19 with this lockdown than it did in the spring.

Dr. Sudit Ranade made the comments during a news conference Thursday, after Lambton Public Health reported 45 more cases of COVID-19 Thursday.

Wednesday, the number of new cases dipped to 10.

Ranade cautions that a one day dip in the number of cases in Lambton doesn’t signal things are getting better yet.

“in order to say that, something is actually changing in terms of the dynamics of transmission in the population, you need more time,” says Ranade.

“You need to actually see a trend on it; you need to see it getting lower for days and days and days at a time, and to see many, many days of cases below 10 instead of just a day here and there.”

There have now been 1,730 cases since the outbreak began, over 1,200 since Dec. 18.

Statistics released today show there are 214 people ill with the virus in Lambton, up 12 from yesterday. Another 33 people have recovered.

Ranade says while we may see some affects of the Boxing Day lockdown, he believes it will take longer to get a hold on the spread of COVID-19 now, compared to the spring.

“There was more circulating disease at the time that lockdowns were instituted so it takes longer to get through that and tamp down the diseases in the community.”

He adds people are tired of COVID-19 restrictions and may have decided to do their own thing, which will continue the spread of the virus.

And Ranade says, this time around, the rules aren’t nearly as restrictive. “In the early days of this lockdown, and maybe even now, there are substantially more things that are allowed to continue than were allowed in the first back in March.

“Those three things combined together I think, make it such that we need a longer amount of time with a lockdown to experience the same result that we experienced the first time.”

Ontario reported 2,632 COVID-19 cases Thursday and 46 more deaths.

There were 70,256 tests completed.