THUNDER BAY — With the recent exponential increase in COVID-19 cases in the Thunder Bay area, there's speculation the city and district may move out of the green zone and into the yellow zone of the province's COVID-19 response framework.
The Thunder Bay District Health Unit's Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Janet DeMille, says "We certainly have a number of indicators that are used in the yellow range right now, for sure."
A number of factors are considered in determining which of five zones apply to each local health unit in Ontario, including weekly COVID-19 incidence rates, test positivity rates, outbreak trends and the level of community transmission.
The green zone allows for the broadest range of activities.
Currently, all public health units in Northern Ontario with the exception of Sudbury and Districts are in this category.
Sudbury recently moved into the yellow zone, which under the framework requires some additional restrictions, "enhanced targeted enforcement, fines, and enhanced education to limit further transmission."
There have been 69 new COVID-19 cases in the Thunder Bay area just since Nov. 6, well over one-third of the total number of cases all year.
In an interview Tuesday, Dr. DeMille said she reached out to the ministry for clarification on how decisions are made about moving health units into a different zone.
"This is a fairly new process...I might be involved at some point this week to make that decision," she said, but added that the provincial cabinet will ultimately make the call.
In an interview later in the day with Thunder Bay Television, DeMille indicated she would support moving to the yellow zone.
The decision could come Friday and be implemented the following Monday.
In the wake of Tuesday's announcement of 21 new cases in the area – the largest single-day total so far during the pandemic – DeMille was asked if she expects more days with large numbers of cases.
She noted that 29 of the recent cases are linked to exposure at several local pickleball centres.
"I think we see this as a possible superspreader event, where somehow the virus is able to spread, maybe somebody is particularly infectious, so more people are impacted by that."
DeMille said "When we have a significant event like [that] we're going to expect to see a higher number of cases over the first seven days, then it should decline a bit after that."
