The Thunder Bay District Health Unit is doing away with regular media releases and social media posts to advise the public about outbreaks of respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses, including COVID-19, at settings including public hospitals and long-term care homes.
The move to direct residents instead to the health unit's website to find updates was announced to media by the TBDHU’s new associate director of communications and strategic initiatives, Dana Wilson, on Nov. 9.
Wilson said online notifications through the health unit's social media platforms will continue for the next few weeks.
In an interview Monday, Karen Battigelli, manager of infectious diseases with the TBDHU, said questions had been raised as to whether sending out multiple media releases in a day was still an effective way to share that information with the community.
“Our website is completely up to date, and it has all of the facilities that are actually in current outbreak status,” she noted. “It also includes other information as it relates to respiratory illnesses.”
As of Monday, there were three active COVID-19 outbreaks across the district, in the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre's 2B unit, and at Chartwell's Glacier Ridge and Thunder Bay retirement homes.
Battigelli added there are no influenza-related outbreaks yet within the community, pointing to low wastewater levels of influenza.
She added, however, that there might be an uptick in cases of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), but those are not reported to the TBDHU unless it is during an outbreak situation.
A COVID-19 outbreak is declared when two or more lab-confirmed cases with a common epidemiological link are detected in the same setting within a seven-day period.
For Influenza, the standard is two or more cases with an epidemiological link within 48 hours, with at least one being lab-confirmed
Battigelli stressed that facilities still have an obligation to report respiratory illnesses, and file initial reports on suspected symptoms with the health unit even before cases are confirmed.
Outbreaks will be updated on the website on weekdays, excluding statutory holidays. Outbreak information will be removed from the website one week after an outbreak is declared over.
