All eight cases are part of the same family unit
MANITOULIN—Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) is reporting another three cases of COVID-19 this afternoon, January 7, in Manitoulin District, bringing the three-day total for Manitoulin—from Tuesday to Thursday—to eight. The Expositor has learned that all eight positive cases are members of the same family. This news comes the same day as Ontario’s record high case count and lockdown extension for Northern Ontario.
One of the family members, an infant, is currently undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at SickKids in Toronto.
Thursday’s three new cases bring the COVID-19 case count for Manitoulin District to 21 since the pandemic’s start in March 2020, with 13 recovered.
Greater Sudbury also reported 11 new cases of COVID-19 on January 7, bringing the total active cases in the PHSD catchment area to 46. Greater Sudbury’s total number of cases sits at 281 while the Sudbury District, which did not see an increase this week, remains at 16 cases since the pandemic began.
PHSD reports that of the 29 new cases in its service area, 13 were close contacts of confirmed cases. “This means that Public Health identified how these people were exposed to COVID-19 and was able to take quick action to prevent further spread,” a press release from PHSD states.
The source of exposure was unknown for five cases, while 11 cases remain under investigation
None of the new cases had acquired their infection due to an outbreak in the past seven days. Two of the cases had travelled to other areas of the province where then were exposed to confirmed cases. Two additional cases were related to these cases who had travelled.
By end of day on Wednesday, January 6, contact tracing information was available for all 29 of the new cases. Through PHSD investigation, the health unit identified 214 people who had high-risk close contacts with these cases—an average of seven high-risk close contacts per case, compared to six contacts per case on average last week. “Public Health follows up directly and regularly with every high-risk close contact to monitor them for symptoms, ensure they are self-isolating and make recommendations for testing according to provincial guidance,” the press release notes.
The seven-day incidence rate was 14.6 new cases per 100,000 population (compared to 7.0 for the previous seven days).
The percent positivity was 0.91 percent for the period of December 31 to January 6 (compared to 0.35 percent for the previous seven days).
For the period of December 30 to January 5, the effective reproductive number (the average number of secondary cases directly generated by one case) was 1.12 for Northern Ontario, and 1.20 for Ontario overall.
Anyone who is exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms or has concerns that they may have been in contact with a known case should contact the Manitoulin Health Centre COVID assessment centres by calling 705-368-2300 (Little Current site) or 705-377-5311 (Mindemoya site) and follow the prompts. Testing is based on a clinical assessment of each person.
