December 29, 2020

TUESDAY COVID COUNT 2 IN MUSKOKA — 267 IN SIMCOE

SIMCOE-MUSKOKA — The lockdown, a new variant and a slow rollout to prevent the pandemic’s spread are having little effect on local cases of COVID-19 as new numbers released late this afternoon show an explosion in cases.

Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reports 269 cases Tuesday, Dec. 29.

But only 2 women in Muskoka.

One in Huntsville under investigation.

And one in Bracebridge, described as an educational outbreak.

The Spruce Glen Public School in Huntsville posted on its website and in an email to parents that “a person” at the school tested positive.

That’s in addition to a student at the school who earlier in the pandemic tested positive.

Those 269 cases are the accumulated total for the past five days — Thursday to Monday.

Their last numbers — 48 — released on Thursday were for Wednesday, Dec. 23.

That’s an average of 54 per day.

Missing in today’s numbers, which weren’t released until after 4:30 p.m., are the numbers from Christmas and Boxing Day.

An email to the health unit is seeking additional numbers.

Meanwhile, on the vaccine front after optimism before Christmas on its rollout, the widely regarded panacea is off the track.

Retired general Rick Hillier admits it was a “mistake” to close down injection clinics during the holiday.

And while some workers and staff at The Pines retirement home in Bracebridge began getting the vaccine Dec. 23, most of the rest of the district are left agonizingly waiting.

Hillier said today it will be spring before remote parts of the country in the north get an opportunity to be inoculated.

The daunting distribution task, which has thrown into question wildly optimistic prediction numbers by spring, is threatened by a new virus variant that governments and health officials claim is not as severe is spreading easier and faster in Ontario, Quebec and B.C.

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**Despite good intentions, government laws and new variants cases continue to climb in Simcoe today. Muskoka measures appear to be working of late with just two cases.**