MUSKOKA CASE-FREE THURSDAY, WHILE SIMCOE ADDS 26 MORE CASES

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

SIMCOE-MUSKOKA — COVID’s last mile is fraught with twists and turns at every border.

As Alberta Premier Jason Kenney flip-flops on vaccine passports and Quebec orders health care workers to be fully vaccinated or be suspended, a rise in local cases shows no one is immune.

Simcoe reports 26 cases and 1 new death — but none in Muskoka today.

That’s 8 more than the past two days.

This month, Since Sept. 1 when there were 22 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka, the 16 daily cases this month have been 51, 23, 29, 34, 21, 18, 25, 37, 27, 33, 37, 16, 18, 18 and now 26 Thursday.

And there have now been 5,800 variants of concern among the 13,275 coronavirus cases

Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) has counted since the pandemic began in the winter of 2020.

As Canada leads the world in vaccinations Simcoe south is holding back the region as it remains the epicentre of cases.

Going out to the public with pop-up clinics has helped Simcoe-Muskoka with numbers rising each day — to 73.4 per cent of the total population vaccinated once and 67.5 per cent twice.

However, as in Alberta why wasn’t a more pro-active approach on vaccines been done across Central Ontario rather than the reactive approach of waiting for people to come to mass vaccination clinics?

The past day 19 residents who tested positive were unvaccinated, 8 were fully vaccinated and 1 partially vaccinated.

Today there are 234 active cases — up 27 from yesterday, 13 are in hospital,

And 930 of the 5,800 VOCs are Delta variants.

No wonder Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health, said yesterday that it’s going to take “weeks” if not longer to reach his and province’s goal of 90 per cent vaccine coverage among all ages groups.

Clinics this Friday and Saturday in Muskoka at these three locations all open to the public:

  • Friday: Huntsville High School, 58 Brunel Rd., 4-7 p.m.
  • Saturday: Port Carling Foodland, 10 Bruce Wilson Dr., 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
  • Saturday: MacTier Memorial Community Centre, 9 Haig St., 1-4 p.m.

THURSDAY: COVID BY THE NUMBERS … 26 CASES IN SIMCOE-MUSKOKA (18 YESTERDAY) … ONTARIO 864 AND 3 DEATHS (593-5) … TORONTO 162 (141), YORK 78 (39), PEEL 122 (61) … NORTH BAY-PARRY SOUND 3 (0) … PORCUPINE 1 (2) …

Public health nurses keep busy between vaccine patients by squeezing six shots out of each vial to keep ahead of demand.

HEALTH UNIT HIGHLIGHTS:

  • 13,275 cases to date
  • 78 cases this week; 197 last week, which was 3% lower than the 203 cases the week before
  • From December 22nd, 2020 onwards, there have been 203 confirmed COVID-19 cases among vaccinated individuals.
  • There was one COVID-19 related death reported in August and one COVID-19 related death has been reported in September.
  • From July 18 to Sept. 11, the rate of COVID-19 infection among the unvaccinated vaccine-eligible Simcoe Muskoka population is 11 times higher than it is for fully vaccinated population and the rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations is 37 times higher.
  • 4,007 Alpha variants of concern, 168 Gamma, 34 Beta, 930 Delta
  • 661 cases await confirmation of VOC.
  • 859,995 vaccines have been administered
  • 443,717 residents have had one vaccine, which is 73% of the total population
  • 84% of those 12+ have had one vaccine
  • 81% of youth 12 to 17 have also received one vaccine

IN OTHER COVID NEWS …

  • After VOCs were renamed, Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca asked for new names for their vaccines and Health Canada has said yes. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has now been dubbed Comirnaty, which the company says represents a combination of the terms COVID-19, mRNA, community, and immunity. The Moderna vaccine will go by SpikeVax and the AstraZeneca vaccine will be named Vaxzevria.
  • Mississauga is extending its public face mask bylaw to March 31, 2022
  • Saskatchewan will now join Alberta, Ontario and other provinces with a vaccine passport.
  • 8 Alberta high schools are temporarily closed due to more cases.
  • East coast outbreaks today include 51 in New Brunswick, and 34 each in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
  • China says it has surpassed 1 billion people who are now fully vaccinated, after giving out 2.16 billion doses.

 

EMAIL: news@muskokatoday.com

28 years of ‘Local Online Journalism’

Twitter: @muskokatoday, Facebook: mclairmont1

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