January worst month for COVID-19 in Niagara
Case counts and deaths have doubled in the span of one month
As many Niagara residents tested positive for COVID-19 in January as they did for all of the preceding nine months, according to an analysis by the St. Catharines Standard.
Sobering data Sunday showed half of Niagara’s total cases and more than half its deaths were recorded in the first weeks of 2021, making it the region’s worst month since the pandemic began.
Niagara Region Public Health reported 3,938 new cases from Jan. 1 to Jan. 31 — 49.94 per cent of total cases reported since the first person tested positive in the region on March 13, 2020.
Niagara’s new case numbers were pretty flat through last summer and early fall but started to climb in October.
By December, surging cases across the province and a concern that numbers would spike in January, fuelled by people holding social gatherings over Christmas holidays, led to the province’s lockdown on Boxing Day.
The prediction of a bleak January proved accurate for Niagara, where the case counts climbed dramatically and almost doubled from Dec. 31 to Jan. 31. There have been a total of 7,885 cases overall.
The jump in cases also meant January was the deadliest month of the pandemic in the region.
Fifty-four per cent of Niagara’s COVID-19 deaths happened in January, with the other 46 per cent spread out over the previous months going back to the first reported death on March 24, 2020.
This past weekend, four deaths were reported, bringing the total number of people with COVID-19 who’ve lost their lives in the region to at least 311 Sunday.
Of those, 168 were reported between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31.
There is an optimistic trend, though.
New COVID-19 cases in the region are declining and six of the past eight days had less than 100 new cases each.
There were 80 new cases reported on Saturday and 67 on Sunday, for a weekend total of 147.
Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji, has said it appears the region peaked in new infections about Jan. 8 and could continue to see a declining trend if residents heed safety protocols and regulations.
The situation should also improve as residents of longterm-care homes in Niagara begin receiving their second doses of Pfizer vaccines Wednesday.
The number of active cases in the region was down to 1,156 on Sunday from 1,218 on Saturday.
And the number of outbreaks was at 43 on Sunday, down from 51 earlier in the week.
While case counts at schools have largely been non-existent because of local school closures, Niagara Catholic District School Board did report two cases on Friday.
Niagara Catholic spokesperson Jennifer Pellegrini explained in an email that many schools are open to students with complex education needs who struggle to learn virtually and there are also some staff teaching from schools across the system.
In the first case, an individual at Blessed Trinity Catholic Secondary School in Grimsby tested positive for COVID-19 and there were students and staff who were exposed while the person was infectious.
The individual is in isolation and the school sent a letter to all students and staff to notify them.
The second case involves a positive individual from St. Mary Catholic Elementary School in Welland, but Niagara Catholic said it was advised by public health that there was no risk of transmission and no contact tracing was required.
The board said the information was shared as a matter of transparency.