The Northwestern Health Unit says they’re considering additional public health measures as the region is seeing the highest COVID-19 case rates in the province.
At a meeting on Tuesday (February 22, 2022) Dr. Kit Young Hoon, Medical Officer of Health for the NWHU, says their catchment area’s COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 people is the highest in Ontario – and is five times higher than the provincial average.
“The region's seven-day positive case rate is 455.1 per 100,000 population, while Ontario as a whole sits at 90.7 per 100,000,” Young Hoon added.
The NWHU says the area’s COVID-19 test positivity rate is also on the rise, increasing by more than five per cent since Friday, February 18 to 29.1 per cent. That's almost triple Ontario's average positivity rate of 10.8 per cent.
“It could be a number of reasons,” says Young Hoon. “Our Omicron wave did hit later than the rest of Ontario. We did not peak as high, the peak for Ontario went much higher than the peak of our incident rates so therefore we have a flatter curve, which means it will last longer.”
Young Hoon says as the NWHU is considering additional measures, they will be looking closely at various statistics to come to their decision, if necessary.
“We’d look at the information that we have from those statistics, such as where it’s occurring? What’s driving the case numbers? What could be risk factors that individuals have that could be leading to this spread?” Young Hoon said.
She says in the event of a regional health order being issued, Letters of Instruction will be provided to businesses and workplaces under the Reopening Ontario Act with advisement from Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health.
Young Hoon believes these staggering statistics are due to an increase in illnesses circulating across the region. Due to the widespread layout of the region and population, Young Hoon thinks this will cause the spread to occur over a longer period of time.
As a precaution to try and reduce the data, Young Hoon is encouraging people to continue following public health measures, even though some restrictions were lifted on February 17, 2022.
Dr. Young Hoon recommends the following measures:
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Keep social gatherings limited to a maximum of 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors;
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All indoor public settings are limited to the number of people who are able to maintain a physical distance of at least two metres from every other person to a maximum capacity of 50%;
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Be vigilant in continuing to practice all prevention measures, including physical distancing, daily screening, staying home when feeling unwell, and wearing a mask properly when in indoor public settings and when physical distancing is challenging; and
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Getting a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as it significantly reduces the chance of infection from the Omicron variant.