If you’re sensing more urgency in the voices and faces of public health officials and political leaders with each passing day, there’s good reason for that: the third wave of the COVID pandemic has brought with it some very alarming numbers.
In the Peterborough region, active case counts continue to rise dramatically as much more transmissible, and potentially deadly, COVID variants of concern are being detected while active outbreaks remain at a record high.
Asked during a Peterborough Public Health media briefing held Friday (April 16) if we are now at the most critical point of the pandemic since it was declared more than a year ago, medical officer of health Dr. Rosanna Salvaterra said there’s no question of that.
“We’ve never had as many (active) cases or high-risk contacts (of cases),” said Dr. Salvaterra.
“We have waste-water surveillance data that is sounding the alarm bell for what may be ahead for us in the coming days and weeks. Because of the variants of concern, the risk for transmission has never been greater. These are both risky times and concerning times.”
“We were hopeful the stay-at-home order was going to help modulate this wave, but we’re not seeing that happening,” Dr. Salvaterra said, echoing comments made by Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, who presented updated modelling numbers at a Friday afternoon media briefing along with Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health.
“A week later, the numbers are going up instead of down. It’s abundantly clear that we all have to do more to tame this third wave. All our indicators show that it’s proving to be much worse than previous waves.”
A check of the local numbers for Peterborough city and county, Curve Lake, and Hiawatha bear out Dr. Salvaterra’s unprecedented level of concern.
As of Thursday (April 15) at 4 p.m., there were 139 active cases reported — an increase of 36 since Monday (April 12). To date this week, 73 new cases of COVID have been detected, putting the week well on pace to surpass last week’s record one-week total of 83. April, meanwhile, will soon surpass March for the highest monthly total of new cases seen in the local region.
More telling of the worrying escalation of the pandemic is the number of high-risk contacts of positive cases currently being followed by public health staff, which now stands at a record high of 421.
“That clearly indicates that some people are not limiting their socializing,” said Dr. Salvaterra. “I cannot stress enough how important it is to limit contacts and stick within your household members.”
“That not only prevents transmission but it means there are less people impacted by self-isolation and testing. This current volume of high-risk contacts is now at the point where it could overwhelm our contact tracing resources. We’ve had to redeploy additional staff to assist.”
One fall-out of that is, as of today, after-hour and weekend messages will no longer be taken on the Peterborough Public Health hotline — as the nurses monitoring those calls are redeployed to more pressing needs.
As for the vaccines versus variants race, news that expected Moderna shipments coming to Canada in April have been scaled back considerably is putting a worrisome dent in the vaccination roll-out plan, already resulting in the close of the vaccination clinic at Peterborough Regional Health Centre.
Still, to date, 41,148 Peterborough and area residents have been vaccinated with at least one dose since January 26. That number represents 32.6 per cent of the local vaccine-eligible population.
As of now, residents’ best chance of being vaccinated any time soon lies in making, and securing, an appointment with those pharmacies offering AstraZeneca shots to anyone 55 years of age and older. Four city pharmacies — Costco Pharmacy at 485 The Parkway, High Street Guardian Pharmacy at 815 High Street, Walmart Pharmacy at 1002 Chemong Road, and Rexall at 1154 Chemong Road — are booking vaccination appointments.
The full list of Ontario pharmacies providing vaccinations is available at covid-19.ontario.ca/vaccine-locations, where visitors can type in their postal code to find the pharmacy closest to home.
Dr. Salvaterra again stressed that it’s vital that who do secure a pharmacy appointment that had previously booked an appointment with a community clinic cancel that appointment so someone can take their spot and no vaccine is wasted.
Regarding active outbreaks, that number remains at seven. Two outbreaks in workplace settings were cleared this week but two more have since been added.
Also commenting during Thursday’s media briefing were Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith, Peterborough Mayor Diane Therrien, and Peterborough board of health chair and Selwyn mayor Andy Mitchell.
