COVID cases continue to go down in our area.
There are now 365 active cases in the Northwestern Health Unit catchment area, down from 419 Monday.
There were 36 new positives today.
Tuesday Breakdown (Health Hubs):
-Sioux Lookout: 13
-Fort Frances: 6
-Kenora: 5
-Rainy River: 4
-Dryden: 3
-Emo: 3
-Red Lake: 1
-Atikokan: 1
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kit Young Hoon says these aren’t true numbers.
“The decline is due to the implementation of different eligibility criteria for testing. So less people now can get tested. So that means because of that action, which occured December 31, the case numbers will just naturally decrease.”
She adds, “I think it would be important to monitor maybe two to three weeks to really see what the true trend is on case numbers. Per cent positivity would be particularly important to pay attention to and also hospitalization rates. We’ve seen a small increase in hospitalization numbers.”
Dr. Young Hoon notes, “Our hospitalization numbers are still small but it did increase over the month of December. So it’s important to monitor it moving forward. The increase was likely more due to Delta. Now that Omicron is likely the more dominate variant in our region it is important to monitor the hospitalization rates over the next few weeks.”
She believes Omicron is now prevalent in most if not all communities.
