Q&A: Dr. Alex Summers, London-Middlesex MOH, reflects on 2 years of COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 a global pandemic, changing the world overnight and marking the start of what would become one of the deadliest pandemics in world history.London had already seen one confirmed case of the virus by the time the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, while the province had recorded at least 42 cases, along with its first death. (The death wouldn’t be officially confirmed as COVID-19-related until the following week.) School boards ‘expected’ to follow province in lifting mask mandate, Ontario government says Two years later, the London-Middlesex region has seen more than 32,500 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 — an undercount due to testing eligibility changes — and has recorded more than 350 deaths, while across Ontario, more than 1.12 million people have tested positive and 12,227 have died during the pandemic.Globally, more than 454 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 while more than six million people have died, according to figures released by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at John Hopkins University.To mark the two-year anniversary of the pandemic, 980 CFPL’s Mike Stubbs sat down with Dr.

Alex Summers, the newly named medical officer of health for London and Middlesex, to reflect on the pandemic so far, the lessons learned, the unknowns moving forward, and the lifting of pandemic measures as health indicators improve and as more people get vaccinated.Dr.

Summers, the last two years, how long have they felt for someone who has been in public health? Can you put those in context at all?On one hand, Mike, it’s felt like a lifetime.