‘When will it end?’: New data suggests COVID-19 could become endemic The government uses several epidemiological factors to decide where to place a public health unit as well as the number of outbreaks and level of community transmission.A week ago, Waterloo Region’s weekly incidence rate was around 58 per 100,000 with a per cent positivity rate of around 2.8, which put the area squarely in the red category, while an effective reproduction number of 1.1 fell just below the 1.2 red threshhold.As of Thursday, the area’s weekly incidence rate stood around 56 per 100,000 with a per cent positivity rate of around 3.0, setting the area in the red category while the effective reproduction number remains at 1.1.In addition, there are now 29.