COOL CLIME COULD LEAD TO MORE COVID CASES AS 17 TEST POSITIVE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
MUSKOKA — An end to warm temperatures this week could see a spike in COVID cases says the local public health head.
Dr. Charles Gardner said this afternoon the “pattern of transmission” is related to cooler Canadian seasonal climes as people congregate more indoors.
And that could see Simcoe and Muskoka with 3,000 cases by the end of the year.
As of today there have been 1,560 positive tests locally since the pandemic started, 143 of them active cases
That has the region overall in yellow zone, the middle level in the province’s new three-tier colour-coded designation rating system.
This as Ontario reported a record 1,388 cases.
Again today communities in and around south Simcoe are accounting for most of the 17 people with the coronavirus — 9 male and 8 female.
Only one woman, 18-34 in Orillia under investigation, is from North Simcoe.
And no one from Muskoka tested newly positive.
Though there is one person in a Muskoka hospital, who Gardner would not say anything more about when pressed for more non-specific details surrounding their location, age or whether they were a worker or not.
He cited privacy reasons around identifying the person further.
Across the country, Ontario’s numbers topped Quebec, which reported 1,162 cases, Alberta 644 and Manitoba 384 sending them into more restrictive province-wide red zone restrictions Thursday.
Back in Simcoe Muskoka, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit medical officer of health said in his weekly briefing that residents need to be more “vigilant” to flatten the curve.
In the first two days of this week 67 people have tested positive, starting from last Friday’s reporting.
One was community acquired, 16 are self-isolating.
Eight are in hospital and most are aged 40 to 80.
There are three new outbreaks among 12 ongoing, with 5 of them in institutional settings.
An outbreak at Granite Ridge in Gravenhurst was declared over last Friday, Nov. 6.
There are 2 educational outbreaks at a Bradford high school and at an elementary school in Hillsdale.
They are among 62 school reported incidents investigated.
And the worst outbreak remains at Simcoe Manor in New Tecumseth, where 32 people have become infected and to where nine of the region’s 50 people who have died lived.
Gardner concluded by saying he was “happy to see” early reports of a possible COVID vaccine, but said he “tempers” his hopes and is taking a “wait and see” approach to “silver bullet.”
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