THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay District Health Unit announced 48 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 Friday, with the number of active cases dipping only slightly from a record high set Thursday.
All but one of the cases announced Friday involved individuals in the Thunder Bay area, with one case in an unspecified First Nation in the district.
Of the new cases, 30 were considered a result of close contact with a previously identified case, 7 had no known exposure, and an exposure category for 11 others was still pending.
With 56 previous cases declared resolved Friday, the active case count fell to 389, from a record 397 the previous day.
There were 27 district individuals in hospital with the virus as of Friday, a decrease of two. Eight of those individuals were in the Intensive Care Unit.
Overall, the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre - which serves patients from across the region - reported 37 patients in hospital with COVID-19 Friday, with 12 in ICU.
Key COVID-19 indicators in the Thunder Bay District Health Unit remain among the highest in the province.
The health unit's incidence rate for the most recent period of Feb. 23 to March 1 stood at 195.4 cases per 100,000 people, far above the next-highest of 108.2 in the Brant County Health Unit.
The health unit's testing positivity rate for the most recent week reported, Feb. 21 to 27, stood at a record 5.1 per cent, compared to 2.4 per cent province-wide.
Three COVID-19 variants of concern tracked by the province have still not been detected in the Thunder Bay District as of Friday, according to Public Health Ontario data.
The Thunder Bay District had seen a total of 1,843 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began as of Friday, with 1,422 considered resolved, 389 active, and 32 deaths attributed to the virus.
