Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph (WDG) Public Health has developed an anonymous survey on their website to help and track the spread of COVID-19.
Danny Williamson, communication specialist at WDG Public Health, said what they’re really trying to understand is where COVID-19 is moving in the community, how it’s moving between people and where people are most at risk.
“We’ve moved to the orange level, we know that there’s possibility of red and of a lockdown in the future if things don’t change,” Williamson said. “Our ability to really understand what places put us in the most risk, and then, really target our interventions, is really important to keeping the region as open as possible, but keeping each other safe.”
He said that by the public participating in the survey, it’s really going to help the team at WDG Public Health develop a fuller picture of COVID-19, and then translate that into effective interventions.
Williamson told The Grand 101.1 an example of a targeted intervention that was made earlier in the fall by Dr. Nicola Mercer, medical officer of Health at WDG Public Health, regarding gyms and fitness facilities.
“To reduce their high impact classes and look at offering lower impact and or smaller classes as a way to reduce COVID-19 in transmission in fitness facilities,” Williamson said. “So, that’s really a targeted intervention based on some data that showed that places where we exercise because we’re breathing harder, we’re breathing more, [and] that creates an environment for COVID-19 to spread more.”
Williamson stressed that the survey is anonymous and will take residents about five minutes to fill out.
“People should understand that this is going to be information we use in the aggregate. It’s not so much where you or I might have been exposed to COVID-19, but it’s understanding the picture in the region. What places are all of us most at risk, and really bringing up the volume of information that we know here, and using that to kind of get a full picture.”
He added those who have tested positive in the past do not need to complete the survey.
The COVID-19 survey can be found by clicking here.
Danny Williamson, communication specialist with WDG Public Health: