THUNDER BAY The Thunder Bay District health unit reported 111 new COVID-19 cases Sunday, with the number of active cases soaring to 470.
The record count included 70 cases that should have been reported Friday and Saturday, the health unit said, but were missed due to issues with the provincial Case and Contact Management (CCM) database.
The health unit has now reported 382 new cases over the past week, including the previous single-day record of 61 on Thursday.
Of the new cases, 107 involved individuals in the Thunder Bay area, while 4 were in district First Nations.
Sixty-six of the new cases were considered a result of close contact with a previously identified case, 9 had no known exposure, and an exposure category for 36 others was pending.
With two new hospitalizations reported Sunday, there are now 37 district residents in hospital with the virus, including 11 in the Intensive Care Unit.
Active cases rose by 84 from Saturday, with 27 previous cases declared resolved.
The Thunder Bay District has by far the highest COVID-19 incidence rate in Ontario, standing at 202.1 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recent week of data available, Feb. 25 to March 3.
That’s more than double the rate in any other health unit – Brant County was next at 90.2.
Three COVID-19 variants of concern tracked by the province have still not been discovered in the TBDHU as of Saturday, according to Public Health Ontario data.
The health unit has now reported a total of 1,994 confirmed cases since the pandemic began. Of those, 1,492 were considered resolved, 470 were active, and 32 local deaths had been attributed to the virus.
Note: This article has been updated to indicate that 70 of the cases reported Sunday should have been reported over the previous two days, but were missed due to issues with a provincial database.
