Chatham-Kent’s mayor is refuting claims that having a family gathering at Thanksgiving is safer than going to a restaurant.
Darrin Canniff says he knows there’s been a lot of discussion over social circles and what’s considered safe in the midst of growing cases of COVID-19 across Ontario.
“There’s a thousand different things going on, the bottom line is be safe and practice your social distancing,” Canniff says. “One of the big issues is that at family gatherings, you don’t do that, you’re not wearing masks, generally speaking you’re not practicing your social distancing, you’re hugging and all that.”
Canniff says social distancing measures are in place in more public settings, which helps to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
“In public, there’s not nearly as much spreading going on because they are social distanced, because they have Plexiglas, because you are wearing masks,” Canniff explains. “We don’t want it to spread across the community, we don’t want to start even considering what we went through six months ago and all the lockdowns. I do not want to see that and I’m not sure our economy could handle that.”
Canniff echoes the comments of health officials that most new cases COVID-19 across Ontario are coming from private, family gatherings, when we’re not being as careful.