Niagara’s COVID caseload continues to fall

For the first time since Jan. 10, Niagara has fewer than 1,000 active COVID-19 cases in the community.

It’s a sign of progress in bringing the spread of the coronavirus under control, but offset by another troubling statistic — the number of COVID-19 deaths isn’t slowing down.

On Wednesday, Niagara Region Public Health reported eight more people have died from COVID-19.

Since last March, there have been 332 deaths in Niagara, but 189 of those have occurred since Jan. 1, and 33 in just the past week.

A large majority were elderly people living in long-term care. Public health staff recently finished a first round of vaccinations at Niagara’s 32 long-termcare homes and 14 retirement residences designated as at-risk by the provincial government.

Earlier this week, Niagara acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji urged people to continue to obey the province’s stay-at-home order and avoid social contacts outside their home.

Despite the progress in bringing down Niagara’s infection rate, he said, there are too many variables — an unsure supply of vaccine, new variants of the coronavirus — to relax just yet.

“The last thing we want is to reopen too soon or too quickly and then find ourselves back in a situation where we have to lock everything down again,” he said.

On Wednesday, public health reported 53 new cases, the sixth straight day the daily count has stayed under 100.

In the past week Niagara has recorded 494 new cases, down from the 681 reported in the seven days before that.

Since Niagara reported its first positive test last March, the region has seen 8,026 positive COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, Niagara Health reported having 41 COVID-19 patients in hospital care Tuesday. That’s a sharp drop from two weeks previous, when there were 79 patients in hospital. Welland hospital is the only Niagara Health site dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks. It has two, on the fourth floor and extended care unit.

Across Niagara, outbreaks are continuing at Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre in St. Catharines in units 1 East and 2 West and at Grimsby’s West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in the C Ward.