After a “substantial jump” in COVID-19 cases, the region’s medical officer of health undertook a deeper investigation into transmission sources for the 27 new cases reported since Tuesday.
During what is supposed to be the downward slope of the first wave of COVID-19 infections, Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) logged the highest number of cases ever reported in a single day - 25 today.
“I became aware of it late yesterday,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health for SMDHU. “I had to understand what was happening … because you can only respond to something when you understand it.”
The outcome of the investigation revealed several factors behind the increase in cases.
Nine of the new cases are linked to an outbreak on a Simcoe County farm. There are two farm outbreaks at unnamed locations in the county.
There have been nine cases linked to the first farm outbreak and 15 cases linked to the second. Not all those who have tested positive for COVID-19 live in the Simcoe Muskoka jurisdiction, so not all have been included in the total cases reported by the health unit.
Gardner confirmed there is one temporary foreign worker living on the first farm in outbreak who has tested positive and nine temporary foreign workers have tested positive at the second farm.
He said in all those cases, transmission happened locally and each of the workers had already completed a 14-day isolation before contracting COVID-19.
“We have done a site assessment on both of those farms from an infection control perspective,” said Gardner. “Some sanitation issues were identified and managed.”
Gardner noted there is a “high vulnerability” for workers at a farm, particularly if they are living in bunkhouses on site. Because people are working and living together, there is more potential for the virus to spread.
The health unit has ordered everyone working at the two farms in outbreak be tested for COVID-19.
There has also been one more outbreak declared at Stayner Care Centre after a staff member tested positive at the long-term facility. All long-term care staff are now required to be tested once every two weeks.
Outbreaks previously declared at Creeden Valley Care Community (Creemore) and Owen Hill Care Community (Barrie) have now been declared over. Owen Hill was previously out of outbreak when a staff member tested positive. There were no other positive tests since then. At Creeden Valley, one staff member tested positive.
With the remainder of the cases considered “sporadic” or not linked to an outbreak, Gardner said it’s significant there were 11 people who tested positive but have no symptoms of COVID-19.
“I wanted to understand why people got tested,” said Gardner.
With case follow-up, Gardner and the health unit determined there were four people who were tested because they had contact with a known case, and four others who got tested because they wanted to visit a family member at a long-term care facility or retirement home.
A negative test result is one of the province’s requirements for going to visit someone in a nursing or retirement home.
Additionally, each of the people working at the farms in outbreak had to be tested regardless of symptoms.
“The fact that we’ve got a large number that were asymptomatic due to requirements … was of note to me,” said Gardner. “It tells me something about the fact that we might expect more of such positive test results as a result of that kind of thing. It is bringing to the surface cases we wouldn’t have known about otherwise.”
It is possible some of the cases confirmed today, especially those people who have no symptoms of COVID-19, received false-positive results on their test. When the likelihood of the virus is low, such as in an asymptomatic person, the possibility of a false positive is increased.
“We’re treating all tests as positives because that is the safest thing to do,” said Gardner. “You are never able to clearly determine, at the end of the day, that someone had a false positive.”
Testing in the region increased by about three-fold when Premier Doug Ford announced anyone could get a COVID-19 test even without symptoms.
Gardner said it’s stayed pretty steady over the past few weeks. The region’s per cent positivity statistics have gone down from about two to three per cent of all tests being positive to about 0.7 per cent of all tests done in the region being positive.
“There’s a lot of testing happening in order to get that low of a per cent positivity result,” said Gardner.
Since the province announced stage two of its reopening plan, it has made case and contact tracing a little more work for the health unit, but Gardner said he’s not willing to attribute the region’s spike in cases to the stage two reopening.
“I think it’s a bit too soon to be able to say transmission of these cases would be related to moving to stage two,” said Gardner, noting it’s only been one week with fewer restrictions.
“We’ve noted it has complicated our investigations … we’ve had more contacts and more social environments outdoors than was the case before we moved into stage two.”
Today’s spike in cases is what prompted Gardner to host a media briefing. He said it was a good reminder to continue practising physical distancing, proper handwashing, and to wear a mask where physical distancing isn’t possible.
“We need to not let our guard down, because clearly the potential for community transmission is there,” said Gardner.
Of today’s 25 new cases, 10 were listed as community-acquired, nine were linked to outbreaks on the two farms, and the remainder were close contact or are still under investigation. You can find more information on the cases reported today here.
