KENORA – The Northwestern Health Unit reported 12 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 Sunday.
Ten of those involved individuals in the NWHU’s Kenora region, while another two were in the Dryden/Red Lake region. Both are large areas that include over a dozen communities, fully listed on the health unit’s website.
Follow up with those individuals and anyone identified as a close contact has begun, the health unit said.
There were 44 active cases across the NWHU as of Friday (the agency doesn’t update its public data on weekends). Of those, 22 were in the Kenora region, 14 in the Sioux Lookout region, and 8 in the Dryden/Red Lake region.
Another six cases were reported Saturday, with four in the Sioux Lookout region and two in the Rainy River District.
A COVID-19 outbreak was declared Saturday at the Lake of the Woods District Hospital in Kenora, with 10 patients testing positive as of Sunday.
The NWHU’s incidence rate was at 58.2 cases per 100,000 people for the week of Feb. 25 to March 3, the most recent data available from Public Health Ontario.
The incidence rate had reached as high as 117.5 for Feb. 12 to 18, the highest in the province at the time.
The NWHU’s testing positivity rate for Feb. 22 to 28, the most recent week reported, was 1.74 per cent on 2,528 tests completed.
The health unit reported no COVID-19 hospitalizations as of Friday.
No new cases of three COVID-19 variants of concern tracked by the province have been reported since one case of the B.1.17 variant, or U.K. variant, was announced on Feb. 26 in the Dryden area
The health unit has reported a total of 518 cases since the pandemic began, and one death attributed to COVID-19.
