Today, the Medical Officer of Health is reinstating work-from-home requirements, revoked by the province on July 15, 2021, issuing strong recommendations for COVID-19 protections to area schools, businesses, and organizations, and enacting stricter measures for the follow up of contacts of cases of COVID-19.
Effective 12:01 a.m. Monday, November 29, 2021, the updated Letter of Instructions will require businesses and organizations open in the City of Greater Sudbury to ensure that workers are conducting their work remotely, unless the nature of their work requires them to be on-site at the workplace. Certain exceptions apply.
Recommendations for businesses and organizations (COVID-19 safety and holiday gatherings) – throughout Public Health’s service area:
- Every available precaution should be taken, and business conducted in the most COVID-safe ways possible—for example, implementing vaccination policies, strengthening masking requirements, and ensuring physical distancing, in addition to daily symptom screening for employees and patrons, staying home even when mildly ill, and getting tested if individuals have symptoms of COVID-19.
- Limit outings and avoid in-person gatherings, both social and professional. Public Health will provide a Workplace Checklist to help businesses plan COVID-safe gatherings, whether they be virtual or in-person. This checklist will be posted to phsd.ca.
Public Health is also partnering with area school boards to reduce COVID-19 spread in schools and further protect in-person learning. Among the measures strongly recommended by the Medical Officer of Health to boards of education is the voluntary Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) screening of students.
Read the Letter of Instructions here. Read more about this announcement here.