The Simcoe Muskoka region experienced its largest increase in COVID-19 cases last month by more than double the highest case counts in the first wave of the coronavirus.
In October, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reported 463 new cases of COVID-19, most of which were in Simcoe County. The health unit reported 221 cases in the month of April, during the height of the first wave. During the four-month period from June to September, inclusively, the health unit confirmed 426 new cases.
Of the 463 cases reported in October, 214 have been attributed to close contact transmission.
The health unit announced in October it was no longer able to reach all case contacts within a day, and would be enlisting health from Public Health Ontario as well as asking those who test positive to reach out to their own contacts to inform them of their COVID-19 status.
Currently, the health unit reports it is reaching 94.6 per cent of newly reported COVID-19 cases within one day and about 73 per cent of newly reported high-risk COVID-19 contacts within a day. The health unit’s goal is for both of those figures to be at or above 90 per cent.
According to data provided by the health unit’s epidemiologists, school-related cases in the region have an average of 30 close contacts per case, or a range of between 11 to 48 contacts per case.
For sporadic cases (those not associated with a school student or staff or a community or institutional outbreak), there can be between zero and 16 high-risk close contacts per case.
The most high-risk contacts one sporadic case has had was 16, which was a situation encountered by the health unit in late October. Prior to that, the most high-risk contacts associated with a single sporadic case was 10.
The average for the first four weeks of October was 3.3 contacts per case, which is similar to the average number of contacts per cases reported this spring.
Testing numbers have also risen to their highest point in the last several weeks.
During the week of Sept. 20, the health unit noted testing rates reached 220.5 tests completed per 100,000 people in the county of Simcoe (with a 0.3 per cent positivity rate). That number has decreased to 124 tests completed per 100,000 people in Simcoe County and a per cent positivity rate of 1.4 per cent for the week beginning Oct. 14.
In March, April and May, test rates for Simcoe County ranged from 4.8 tests per 100,000 people to 76.3 tests per 100,000 people with per cent positivity rates between 1.2 and 5.4 per cent.
Per cent positivity refers to the percentage of people who test positive compared to the number of tests performed.
The number of hospitalizations has decreased, and though case incidence was much higher in October, hospitalizations were lower than during the first wave of the pandemic in Simcoe County.
In March, April and May, more than 50 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Simcoe-Muskoka region. Since August, there have been about 17 hospitalized in Simcoe County and Muskoka District. In total, the health unit has reported 88 people with confirmed COVID-19 (about seven per cent of the total number of cases in the region) have been hospitalized, including 23 people who were admitted to intensive care units.
Based on a monitoring dashboard posted and updated by the health unit, the local health system is experiencing high capacities for acute care occupancy rates, which are at 87.5 per cent.
However, those are total occupancy rates and not COVID-specific. Intensive care unit bed occupancy rates in the region are currently at 61.5 per cent and ventilator bed occupancy is at 26.9 per cent occupied.
Similar to provincial trends, the second wave has resulted in more cases in younger age groups. In Simcoe-Muskoka, young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 years old have accounted for the highest proportion of COVID-19 cases since June (433 cases). However, the health unit has reported approximately half of all the cases in the region to-date (628 cases) are among those aged 45 years and older.
As of Oct. 30, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reported 1,356 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, and noted 1,141 of those cases had recovered, and 50 of those cases ended in death.
In Simcoe County specifically, there have been 1,277 cases of COVID confirmed, 1,065 recoveries and 49 deaths.
There are 159 active, lab-confirmed cases in the region, and five of those individuals are currently hospitalized.
In Collingwood there have been 19 total cases confirmed, and two of those were reported in October. The town saw most of its cases reported in April and May (14 cases).
In Clearview, there's been an October surge with 15 of the townships total 24 COVID cases reported last month. One Clearview resident died from COVID-19.
In Wasaga Beach five cases were reported in October and five were reported in September. There were 12 cases reported in April and May in Wasaga. In total, 28 Wasaga Beach residents have tested positive for COVID-19, and one has died.
