THUNDER BAY – Dr. Janet DeMille says the public should assume COVID-19 is in every corner of the district -- and take proper measures to keep it at bay.
“That is exactly what we're seeing. COVID-19 is essentially everywhere. It is in many different places, and it is spreading,” said the medical officer of health at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit in a video released on Monday night.
“It is in workplaces, it is in daycares. We saw cases in schools. It is in retirement homes, health-care settings. It is in the retail outlets where you go shopping – for example your local grocery store. It is in people's homes and apartment buildings.”
How bad is it?
It took 313 days for Thunder Bay to reach 1,000 cases.
It took just 34 more for the district to add another 1,000 cases to the count, the 30 additional cases announce on Monday giving the health unit 2,024 cases since the first one was announced last March 27.
There are currently 462 active cases and there hasn't been fewer than 26 cases announced on any day since Feb. 18. Ten times in that span there have been 40 cases or more announced, culminating with 111 announced Sunday – albeit 70 of those cases should have been announced on either Friday or Saturday.
The spread is also no longer being fuelled largely by the city's vulnerable population anymore, which was the case a few weeks ago, when the district's case count began to grow exponentially.
“Even at that time, several weeks ago, there were other cases that were occurring. Now those other cases, the spread outside that vulnerable population, is what is driving our case numbers and leading to the ongoing increase in those numbers,” DeMille said.
“Unfortunately, this is not really settling down.”
The fact of the matter is, she added, people aren't taking the pandemic seriously enough. People are interacting with others much more than they should, which is allowing the virus to spread.
“This virus is having an easy time spreading from one person to the next and to the next.”
Of the 527 cases reported over the past 11 days, 314, more than 60 per cent, are deemed close contact. Dozens more exposure categories are pending, while 64 are labelled unknown.
“In many situations, that person didn't even know that they had it,” DeMille said.
“It has spread in households. It has spread in workplaces ... We see spread when people are getting together.”
People are also ignoring symptoms and interacting with others, passing along the virus before the realize they are positive.
“It may seem like it's just a cold, but it's not,” DeMille said.
DeMille said to help reduce the active case count, the public needs to limit its interactions with others and see only those who reside within one's household. Stay at home as much as possible.
Play dates and sleep-overs are out of bounds for children.
“All of these activities can spread COVID-19 and are spreading COVID-19.”
DeMille also recommended following all protocols when leaving the house and screening one's self every day.
“Don't leave your home if you have any symptoms ... get tested and don't leave your home until you get a negative test back. Don't assume that what you have is just a cold.”
Household members must stay at home until the test result is cleared. DeMille also implored workplaces to ensure all COVID measures are in place and being observed.
