COVID-19 cases linked to holiday under review
Window for cases directly related to Thanksgiving closing
Niagara’s public health department is investigating more than a half-dozen COVID-19 cases that are linked to Thanksgivings gatherings, the St. Catharines Standard has learned.
Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji, said Tuesday several cases confirmed in the past several days have connections to Thanksgiving get-togethers.
What is still unclear, he said, is how many people have been infected as a result of local holiday gatherings.
It has been just more than two weeks since Thanksgiving Day, meaning anyone who was contagious that day has likely recovered and is no longer symptomatic.
That period could also mean anyone infected by Oct.12 could also have fought off the virus by now.
“So we are doing our contact tracing to determine if there are
more people who need to be isolated or tested,” Hirji said.
In some cases, a person who tested positive for a novel coronavirus infection was at a gathering, but it is not yet clear if the person contracted the virus there or was exposed elsewhere.
In other cases, it is not clear if a positive person could have spread it at a gathering.
Hirji has been concerned that Thanksgiving might spawn a spike in local COVID-19 cases. A large number of cases arising from September’s Labour Day long weekend effectively marked the start of the fall COVID-19 wave in Niagara.
Niagara did see a substantial spike in cases this past weekend, with double-digit increases both days. A concerning and consistent case trend, he said, is the number of people who have symptoms linked to COVID-19, but continue to go to work or gatherings.
“That is something we are continuing to see and we really need people to take this seriously and stay home if they have symptoms and get tested,” Hirji said. “In some cases, someone might be concerned about their job, but often what we are finding is that people just are not taking their symptoms seriously.”
Niagara posted single-digit case growth Monday and Tuesday, returning to the kind of numbers the region saw before the weekend.
“It certainly appears that way, but I want to see a few more days of data before I can say this is a trend,” said Hirji. “Either way, the current situation is unchanged. We are seeing more cases, those people have a lot more contacts and people are still going to work with symptoms.”