HUNTSVILLE MAN ONLY MUSKOKA COVID CASE; AND DON’T SAY ‘TRICK-OR-TREAT’ IN QUEBEC

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

SIMCOE-MUSKOKA — Health authorities have ended the work week with 82 COVID cases.

One is a Huntsville man, aged 18-34 who is under investigation after reporting yesterday and with a first episode Wednesday.

The other dozen all live in Simcoe.

Of the 13 reported Friday, 10 were unvaccinated, while 3 were fully vaccinated.

They bring to 13,872 the total number of cases to date.

(*One case was returned to Muskoka from Simcoe.)

This as the province has announced that as numbers go down it could lift all restrictions including masks by March 28.

Monday they will allow more seating capacity in restaurants, bars and gyms and some other indoor business locations.

If all goes well with hospitalizations, starting Jan. 17 other restrictions on sites where vaccine proof is not required will start to be lifted.

And as of today federal vaccine passports are available in Ontario (and the three territories) to allow for international travel. It will have the provincial and Canadian logos on them.

While Ottawa has lifted its non-travel advisory, cruise ships are not included. To fly you will need that QR code by Nov. 30.

Durham MPP Lindsey Park has quit the Ontario Conservative caucus in a dispute with the governing party over her vaccine status.

After telling them she’d get vaccinated, she now says her doctor advises against it due to a “severe allergic reaction” to a previous flu vaccine and a family history of a grandparent getting Guillain-Barré syndrome following a vaccine shot.

She says her doctor has given her an exemption and she is scheduled for further test.

Park, who says she won’t run again next June, will sit as an Independent MPP.

Vaccine clinic Granite Ridge Gravenhurst

A public outdoor pop-op clinic will take place next week at the Granite Ridge Retirement Residence, 1097 Bethune Dr. S., Gravenhurst. Nurses will be on hand Wednesday from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Dress for the weather.

Canada has to immediately decide what to do with 6.6 million unused COVID vaccines in the hands of provinces and territories; and soon another 13 million in federal storage. However, they hope to extend the best before date on the latter doses a further few months.

Pfizer says in its U.S. application for a kids vaccine that it was effective 91 per cent of the time in testing.

Meanwhile, the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) says it’s OK to mix booster shots with the original vaccines.

FRIDAY: COVID BY THE P.H.0. NUMBERS: … 17 CASES IN SIMCOE-MUSKOKA (20 YESTERDAY) … ONTARIO 492 AND 11 DEATHS (413-4) … TORONTO 64 (66), YORK 33 (29), PEEL 59 (54) … NORTH BAY-PARRY SOUND 4 (0) … PORCUPINE 0 (0) …

Birdie num-num! Lois Cooper tries to help this friendly little bird who appeared wing-injured in Gravenhurst today, after landing on MuskokaTODAY.com’s doorstep. Luckily tweety managed to fly the Cooper unimpeded.

HEALTH UNIT HIGHLIGHTS:

  • 13,872 cases to date
  • 82 cases this week; 111 last week, which was 18% lower than the 135 cases the week before
  • From Dec. 22 there have been 361 confirmed COVID-19 cases among vaccinated individuals
  • 2 deaths in October, 5 in September
  • From Aug. 22 to Oct. 16 the rate of COVID-19 infection among the unvaccinated vaccine-eligible Simcoe Muskoka population is 10 times higher than it is for fully vaccinated population and the rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations is 23 times higher.
  • 4,007 Alpha variants of concern, 168 Gamma, 34 Beta, 1,464 Delta
  • 901,265 vaccines have been administered
  • 458,528 residents have received at least one vaccine, which represents 76% of the population
  • 86% of the population 12+ have had at least one vaccine
  • 86% of youth 12 to 17 have also received at least one vaccine

IN OTHER COVID NUMBERS …

  • “Trick-or-treat!” Don’t say that next week when going door-to-door in Quebec on Halloween. Health officials advise kids not to blurt out for shell-out. Don’t go inside, they say, and don’t accept any un-bagged treats. Certainly not homemade goodies if they still exist.
  • Quebec, which reports 434 cases and 8 deaths, says 90.3 per cent of residents have had one shot and 87.4 per cent of Quebecers are fully vaccinated.
  • Of all the fears of police in Toronto, after Nov. 30 COVID shouldn’t be one of them as the city constabularies will have to be vaccinated or sit out unpaid until they are.
  • National retail sales that were up 2.1 per cent in August dropped to 1.9 in early September reporting.
  • Many Ontario post-secondary colleges and universities are moving to no only make masks and vaccines mandatory, but are now saying students can’t be in school buildings. Learners are being told to take online courses.
  • 100 per cent of Toronto’s Sick Kids hospital’s doctors are fully vaccinated — as are 98 per cent of all staff.
  • Saskatchewan hospitals are entering the next stage of triaging COVID patients as hospitalization cases continue to climb.

EMAIL: news@muskokatoday.com

28 years of ‘Local Online Journalism’

Twitter: @muskokatoday, Facebook: mclairmont1

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