THUNDER BAY – The Thunder Bay District Health Unit reported 11 new cases of COVID-19 and another death, marking the district’s 60th related to the virus.
The number of active cases rose slightly to 54, after falling consistently for nearly three weeks, with five previous cases declared resolved.
Ten of the new cases were in Thunder Bay and the surrounding areas, while one was in a district First Nation.
The health unit said it would no longer distinguish between cases acquired through household contact and those acquired through other close contact, “for privacy reasons due to lower daily case counts.” That could change if case counts increase.
Of the 11 cases reported Tuesday, seven were attributed to close contact, one was unknown, and an exposure category for three others was pending.
There were seven district residents in hospital with the virus Tuesday, down five from the previous day. Two of those people were in the Intensive Care Unit, down from four the previous day.
The TBDHU reports 10 cases of variants of concern have been detected in its catchment area, a figure unchanged since April 16.
The health unit had a testing positivity rate of 1.8 per cent on 3,057 tests for the week of April 4 to 10, the most recent data it has published.
It has an incidence rate of approximately 26.01 cases per 100,000 people over the past week.
The health unit has reported a total of 3,023 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Of those, 54 are active and 2,909 are considered resolved, while the virus has been a contributing or underlying cause in the deaths of 60 district residents.
