NORTH BAY -- The Timiskaming Health Unit is currently dealing with a surge of COVID-19 numbers and is now taking a serious step to enforce restrictions.

Based in New Liskeard, the Health Unit has issued an order making it easier to enforce restrictions in the area.

“Public health needs to have all the tools at their disposal,” explained the Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Glenn Corneil.

“Which is why we made the decision this week, effective immediately, I’m issuing a class section 22 under the HPPA for all the individuals in our district.”

This new mandate gives the health unit, bylaw officers, and Ontario Provincial Police the authority to take more extreme measures against those not following public health recommendations.

“We’re trying to educate people first of all,” said Temiskaming Shores Mayor Carman Kidd.

“If they’re not going to follow our authority and our direction then there could be fines.”

The fines range from $880-$5,000 per day for people who aren’t self-isolating after being told they have to.

“That will be the second step,” Kidd adds.

“Then if we have to isolate people in a mandatory isolation, then we’ll go ahead and do that as a third step.”

Dr. Corneil says he hopes the enforcement of guidelines doesn’t move past fines but won’t hesitate to do so if it is the only option to keep the community safe.

“We will continue to do what we’ve been doing throughout the pandemic, which is very much what we call progressive enforcement,” he said.

“Is that, because this tool is in place, we’re not going to automatically be moving to fines or other measures. What we do and continue to do is reach out to people, explain why they need to isolate, explain the precautions and how this is protecting their family and also protecting the community.”

This new mandate has support from the mayors within the district, who say they aren’t surprised that these measure have to happen.

“People will do what people want to do,” said Nina Wallace, the Mayor of Englehart.

“I think this gives a little bit more teeth for the health unit [and] the ability to fine people and maybe that will work. I’m hoping it does.”

The Timiskaming Health Unit district has been seeing a surge of cases since mid-December and although many were coming from the northern district, officials are now saying it is everywhere.

“With the new cases announced [Wednesday] morning, there is evidence of a new cluster that is starting in the central part of our district,” said Dr. Corneil.

“We know that it’s been mainly in the northern part of our district, where a lot of the new cases are coming from. We do have a new situation that’s starting in the central part and there are still come cases being announced in the southern part of the district.”

Kidd adds, “when you’re looking at 42 cases in the last two weeks, that’s a lot of cases for our population where our total population for the district is about 32,000. So that is a large number, it’s probably a larger number then some of the municipalities in Southern Ontario.”

Officials say that health unit has been working hard at contract tracing and trying to figure out why the numbers have been on the rise.

“The majority of cases we can continue to link together,” explained Dr. Corneil.

“There is a bit of an increase evidence of community spread, which isn’t surprising as our cases go up. We have been able to tie almost all of the cases back to an initial case that came into our area.”

Adding that, “this is meeting the criteria for what we call a ‘super shedder.’ We know that some people, when they have the virus, they’re more contagious then others and are shedding the virus before they even know that they were exposed.”

With Christmas now wrapped up and New Years Eve on the horizon, officials say it is more important than ever that people stay home and don’t celebrate the start of 2021 with people other than those you live with.