November COVID-19 numbers reach a new monthly high
Salvaterra hopeful region can return to ‘green’ status by Christmas
There were 64 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Peterborough area in November — which is the highest singlemonth total in the pandemic so far, says Dr. Rosana Salvaterra.
It’s double the case counts of March or April, Salvaterra said Wednesday at a Peterborough Public Health briefing.
Yet she also said that if local people make a concerted effort to stay home, the yellow-zone Peterborough region may soon return to the green zone under the province’s COVID-19 prevalence framework.
“I do think Peterborough has a realistic chance at a green Christmas,” she said — and she wasn’t talking about lack of snow.
Salvaterra said there were 22 active cases of COVID-19 in the city and County of Peterborough as well as Hiawatha and Curve Lake First Nations (all the jurisdiction of PPH). There were three new cases confirmed Wednesday.
She said the cumulative case count for the region was at 216 on Wednesday. Contact with an infected person is the leading cause of transmission, she said.
There have been five deaths in the Peterborough region so far in the pandemic, she said — three of them residents at Fairhaven long-term-care facility, which is still under outbreak and may continue to be so until Dec. 10 at the earliest.
It was the only outbreak in an institutional setting in Peterborough on Wednesday, and at the virtual news conference Fairhaven executive director Lionel Towns said there were still two residents with COVID-19 in isolation at the home.
There have 20 cases linked to the Fairhaven outbreak, he said, with all the staff and caregivers recovered by Wednesday.
All the cases were linked to the Westview 2 area of the home, he said, and there were no Fairhaven residents hospitalized with COVID-19 on Wednesday.
Towns urged citizens to continue to adhere to public health guidelines such as physical distancing to curb further outbreaks in the city.
Salvaterra said there have been nearly 37,000 people tested in Peterborough for COVID -19 so far, which is 550 more than last week. She added the incidence rate in Peterborough in the last week of November was 144 cases per 100,000 people, compared to the Ontario average of 795 cases per 100,000 people. She also said two thirds of the local cases so far have been in the city with the rest in the County of Peterborough, and that 58 per cent of local cases have been in people aged 20 to 29 (with a slightly higher prevalence among women than men).
Minister for Women and Gender Equality Maryam Monsef was also at the virtual news conference. She said the federal government will be making a free COVID-19 vaccine available to Canadians.
She said the feds have agreements to procure up to 429 million doses of vaccine from seven leading vaccine candidates.
“We will continue to be there for provinces and territories in delivering their responsibilities in health care,” Monsef said.
Regarding the coming Christmas holidays, Salvaterra advised Peterborough residents to avoid international travel.
In cases where families have a post-secondary student in hot spot locations such as Toronto who wants to come home to Peterborough for the Christmas holidays, Salvaterra suggested self-isolation for the student for 10 days before coming home.
For people living outside the region who own cottages in the Peterborough area, Salvaterra recommended planning a longer-term trip to the cottage over the holidays rather than frequent daytrips.
Selwyn Township Mayor Andy Mitchell, the chair of the board of health, was also at the news conference and said that people ought to guard against becoming overwhelmed with the health guidelines around COVID-19.
“My advice for everyone is just to use common sense,” he said. “We all know how to protect ourselves, our families and our community.”