No new COVID-19 cases to report in the Northwestern Health Unit catchment area today.
As of Wednesday, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kit Young Hoon says there were 14 active cases across the region. Twelve of the cases were in the Rainy River District, with two in the Kenora region.
“The situation does appear to be improving still. Just in general, our numbers are decreasing, as well as the number in each area. I think it’s often good to monitor these things for at least two weeks to get a sense of the trend,” says Dr. Young Hoon.
The current test positivity rate sits at 0.41 per cent, compared to 0.61 percent last week and 1.68 percent two weeks ago.
“Of the 13 new cases, nine were close contacts of known cases. One was related to an outbreak, and one was related to travel. The source of exposure remains unknown for two of these new cases.
hrough our investigations, we identified 18 people who had high-risk close contact with cases,” notes Dr. Young Hoon.
While that’s about six contacts per case, Dr. Young Hoon says it is average and consistent with provincial contact tracing findings.
Dr. Young Hoon adds travel accounts for very few of our region’s most recent cases.
“We’ve had a couple of outbreaks, but there’s no specific workplace or workplace setting that’s driving an increase in cases. What we are seeing, generally, is that spread or transmission of COVID-19 is happening related to informal gatherings between households.”
Outbreaks at Atikokan General Hospital Extended Care and Riverview Manor in Rainy River have since been declared over.
There are three people in hospital with COVID-19.
The Health Unit adds it will be reviewing data with the province and Ministry of Education for a decision Thursday about Fort Frances schools returning to in-person learning.
Since March 2020, there have been 234 confirmed and 4 probable cases of COVID-19 in the health unit’s catchment area.
