THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay District Health Unit has reported a third death related to COVID-19 this week, bringing the total number of local deaths tied to the disease in 2022 to 12.
Since the pandemic began, the health unit reports 82 residents of the Thunder Bay district have died with COVID-19 listed as a contributing or underlying cause of death.
The health unit reported 35 people were in district hospitals with the virus, up from 34 in its last update on Wednesday. Nine of those patients were in the ICU. The figures are accurate as of end of day Wednesday.
The district’s active case count rose from 173 to 186, though the health unit has cautioned that number is no longer a reliable indicator of the spread of the virus, after the province limited testing eligibility.
Provincial health authorities have recently estimated case counts could be 10 times higher than what’s reflected in the official numbers.
The health unit reported a 20.1 per cent test positivity rate for the week of Feb. 26 to March 5, on a total of 1,604 tests. That remains well above the provincial average test positivity rate of 9.9 per cent for the same period, the health unit reported.
