With 1 dose summer ahead, expect gradual relaxing of restrictions in Waterloo region

As temperatures warm up and days get longer, people are anticipating getting out of the house and enjoying a one (or two for some) dose summer.

CBC Kitchener-Waterloo asked local health officials to look into a metaphorical crystal ball at questions that will linger over the warmer months and what life will look like this summer and into the fall.

Shirley Hilton, deputy chief with Waterloo Regional Police Service and the person leading the region's vaccination taskforce, says the region is currently on the right track when it comes to getting doses into people's arms.

"By the fall, when more people have been fully vaccinated, I'm hoping we can round the corner and return to the activities that we've been missing,"Hilton said in an email.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, the region's medical officer of health, says in the next week or so, they anticipate getting more recommendations from federal and provincial committees on restrictions that can be relaxed slowly over time.

"We need to expect that it will continue to be a gradual approach," Wang said during a media briefing on May 21.

"Because we're doing well with our vaccination program, as long as we continue on that path, we're going to be able to start lifting some restrictions," she said.

When will children be vaccinated?

Kelly Grindrod, a pharmacist and University of Waterloo professor, says the big question right now is: When will children aged six months to 11 years old get the vaccine.

"They're the ones that we really have our eye on," she said.

Studies looking at vaccinating 12 to 17 year olds started in October 2020, and Ontario teens started to get their first doses earlier this month.

That provides an idea of a timeline, Grindrod says. Studies on younger children started in March, so she says it will likely be August or September before those studies indicate whether existing vaccines will be approved.

"We might see the teens be getting very well vaccinated early in the school year. We don't really know 11 and under how well or when they're going to get access to vaccines. So fingers crossed it's early in the school year," she said.

Gradual reopening helps hospitals

Lee Fairclough, president of St. Mary's General Hospital in Kitchener, says experts predict a rise of COVID-19 again this fall, but she says the community can prepare for it.

"Keeping cases low now reduces likelihood for emergence of new variants," she said, adding she's happy to see the risingnumber of people being vaccinated.

"I am hopeful that this summer, we will see many continue to receive the vaccine and stay the course on the needed public health measures so we can get cases as low as possible much lower than they are todayand gradually reopen. This will also enable us to resume other much needed health services."

'People do not like uncertainty'

Regional Chair Karen Redman says people have come to appreciate the role of science in their lives during the pandemic, and understand better now that what we know is evolving.

"People have to be prepared for new information and one of the things the pandemic has really shown me very clearly is people do not like uncertainty and they do not like ambiguity. But the reality is, science will continue to instruct us, experience will continue to instruct us," Redman said.

"As a community and a society I think we have to be ready to lean into these findings and learnings and, again, trust good information and valued and trusted sources for that information."