As of Friday (April 2), all residents of the greater Kawarthas region aged 70 and over in 2021 can make COVID-19 vaccination appointments through the provincial booking system.

On Thursday afternoon, the Ontario government announced expanded booking eligibility in 10 public health unit regions, including all three in the greater Kawarthas region: Peterborough Public Health, Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, and the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit.

Appointments at local mass immunization clinics can be made online at ontario.ca/bookvaccine.

The government also announced the AstraZeneca vaccine will be available at 350 more pharmacies across the province, including selected pharmacies in the greater Kawarthas region. The AstraZeneca vaccine is available by appointment to those 55 or older in 2021.

Residents of the greater Kawarthas region can contact the pharmacies below to make an appointment. You will have to join a waitlist if the selected pharmacy has not yet received its vaccine doses.

Peterborough

• Costco Pharmacy (485 The Parkway, Peterborough) – b.telehippo.com/o/w591
• High St. Guardian Pharmacy (815 High St. Unit 9, Peterborough) – www.ptboguardian.com/covid-19
• Walmart Pharmacy (1002 Chemong Rd., Peterborough) – walmart.ca/en/covid19-vaccinations-centre-info

City of Kawartha Lakes

• Kawartha Lakes Pharmacy (4A-55 Angeline St. N., Lindsay) – kawarthalakespharmacy.com
• Shoppers Drug Mart (341-343 Kent St. W., Lindsay) – covid-19.shoppersdrugmart.ca

Northumberland County

• Walmart Pharmacy (73 Strathy Rd., Cobourg) – walmart.ca/en/covid19-vaccinations-centre-info
• Rx Drug Mart (16 Grand Rd., Campbellford) – pharmaconnect.ca/appointment/0f920718-d583-4578-b2e8-ad8b431765bd
• Port Hope Pharmasave (60 Ontario St., Port Hope) – https://pharmasave9745.medmeapp.ca/schedule

Haliburton County

As of April 2, 2021, there are no pharmacies in Haliburton County offering the AstraZeneca vaccine. For the most up-to-date list of pharmacies offering vaccination appointments, visit covid-19.ontario.ca/vaccine-locations.

Hastings County

• Shoppers Drug Mart (118 Hastings St. N., Bancroft) – covid-19.shoppersdrugmart.ca
• Kelly’s Guardian Drug Store (411 Bridge St. E., Belleville) – kellysguardiandrugstore.medmeapp.ca/schedule/

Prince Edward County

• Pharma Plus (97 Main St., Picton) – rexall.medmeapp.com/schedule

The provincial government expects another 800 pharmacies across Ontario will be offering the vaccine by the end of April 2021.

For the most up-to-date list of pharmacies offering vaccination appointments, visit covid-19.ontario.ca/vaccine-locations.

Peterborough police have concluded their investigation into the February 20th gatherings at Severn Court Student Residence that led to a major COVID-19 outbreak without laying any charges or issuing any fines.

“We, unfortunately, do not have enough evidence to reasonably lay charges for the events that allegedly transpired on or around February 20,” said medical officer of health Dr. Rosana Salvaterra during a Peterborough Public Health media briefing on Thursday (April 1).

“It’s unclear, from what we know, where those gatherings were, who hosted the gatherings, and if everyone who attended has disclosed that they were there,” she added. “And we have no proof that the indoor capacity limits, which at the time were 10 people, were exceeded at any of those parties. We just don’t have enough good evidence to be able to take any further action at this time.”

Following Dr. Salvaterra’s comments in the briefing, Peterborough police issued an email confirming the investigation has ended.

“A lot of the information was related to health information and it was not clear as to what happened and what rules were breached given the restrictions at the time,” the email reads. “Peterborough police attempted to access that information through a search warrant. That request was declined. Peterborough police will not be proceeding any further with the investigation.”

The outbreak at Severn Court Student Residence, a privately owned student housing complex near Fleming College, resulted in almost 60 cases and the death of a 31-year-old student. That student, who refused to participate in the gatherings because he was afraid of being infected, was subsequently hospitalized after becoming seriously ill.

Meanwhile, with the Ontario government’s announcement on Thursday of a four-week province-wide shutdown to contain the spread of variants of concern, Dr. Salvaterra noted the variants now account for 67 per cent of all Ontario COVID-19 cases, and are associated with a 63 per cent increased risk for hospitalization, a 103 per cent increased risk of ICU admission, and a 56 per cent increased risk of death.

The grim news of yet another lockdown is in stark contrast to what has been good progress made on the local vaccination front.

According to Dr. Salvaterra, 30,433 local residents have received at least their first dose of vaccine — 6,124 more than one week ago. She said 84 per cent of residents age 80 and up have received their first dose,n vaccinated, 40 per cent of those aged 70 to 79, and 30 per cent of those aged 60 to 69.

In addition to those encouraging numbers, Dr. Salvaterra noted a new shipment of AstraZeneca is expected to arrive as early as this weekend.

“This will be made available to people aged 55 and up,” she said, noting three pharmacies in the region will receive a supply of AstraZeneca soon with more to come on board at a later date.

The three pharmacies, all located in the City of Peterborough, are Costco Pharmacy (485 The Parkway), High Street Guardian Pharmacy (815 High Street, Unit 9), and Wal-Mart Pharmacy (1002 Chemong Road). Vaccinations at each location are by appointment only.

Turning to the local status of cases, there are currently 55 active cases in the region. March, with 225 new cases detected, represented the largest one-month case count locally since the pandemic began. Of even greater concern are the 206 variants of concern cases — a jump of 41 since last week.

Meanwhile, the outbreak picture has improved somewhat, with an outbreak at the Brock Mission declared resolved, and two ongoing outbreaks — at Trent University’s Gzowksi College and Empress Gardens Retirement Residence in downtown Peterborough — described by Dr. Salvaterra as “stable”.

However, two workplace outbreaks which have resulted in eight total cases were declared Wednesday (March 31), with one of the two being a business where there was customer interaction.

Also commenting during Thursday’s media briefing were Peterborough-Kawartha MP Maryam Monsef, Peterborough Mayor Diane Therrien, Peterborough County Warden J. Murray Jones, and Peterborough board of health chair and Selwyn mayor Andy Mitchell.

Mayor Therrien spoke specifically to the just-announced shutdown, making it clear she feels it doesn’t go nearly far enough to make a difference one month from now.

“This is not a full lockdown,” she said. “Big box stores are allowed to continue to operate with impunity. Small businesses and self-employed people are going to be the ones to suffer. Front-line essential workers still don’t adequate access to paid sick days, and schools will remain open. This isn’t going to get us to COVID zero.”

“If you’re going to do a lockdown, to prevent the spread in a meaningful way, it needs to be tough across the board and enforced,” Mayor Therrien added. “Without that happening, I’m worried that we’re setting ourselves up for another wave and shutdown and an unsustainable pattern going forward.”

Premier Doug Ford announced on Thursday (April 1) that Ontario is applying a “province-wide emergency brake” as a result of an alarming surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the province.

“We’re facing a very, very serious situation,” Ford said during a media conference in Toronto. “As I’ve said many times, we will do whatever it takes to protect the people of Ontario. As Premier, it falls on me. I’m the one who has to make the tough decisions. Today, I need to make on of those tough decisions.”

The shutdown — which will last at least four weeks — takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, April 3rd.

“This is a new pandemic,” Ford said. “We are now fighting a new enemy. The new variants are far more dangerous than before. They spread faster, and they do more harm than the virus we were fighting last year.”

“We need to close the gap between where we are today and where we will be with the millions of vaccines we’re expecting by June. We need more time for our vaccine program to take hold. But we are in a desperate race right now against an extremely aggressive and fast-moving virus. We need more runway to allow our vaccine roll-out to get where we need it.”

Schools will remain open for in-person learning during the shutdown, as will child care settings, both with strict safety measures in place. Spring break will also continue as planned for the week of April 12th.

The announcement came hours after a technical media briefing by Ontario’s top health experts that shared a sobering assessment of the third wave of the pandemic in the province.

That assessment warned that COVID-19 is spreading far more quickly than it was before and “killing faster and younger”, with a higher propotion of younger people being admitted to hospital intensive care units, and recommended a four-week stay-at-home order to reduce the spread of infections.

However, the province-wide emergency brake announced on Thursday — which the province is not calling a “lockdown” — does not include a stay-at-home order.

The shutdown does include the following measures;

• Prohibiting indoor organized public events and social gatherings and limiting the capacity for outdoor organized public events or social gatherings to a five-person maximum, except for gatherings with members of the same household (the people you live with) or gatherings of members of one household and one other person from another household who lives alone.
• Restricting in-person shopping in all retail settings, including a 50 per cent capacity limit for supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, indoor farmers’ markets, other stores that primarily sell food and pharmacies, and 25 per cent for all other retail including big box stores, along with other public health and workplace safety measures.
• Prohibiting personal care services.
• Prohibiting indoor and outdoor dining. Restaurants, bars and other food or drink establishments will be permitted to operate by take-out, drive-through, and delivery only.
• Prohibiting the use of facilities for indoor or outdoor sports and recreational fitness (e.g., gyms) with very limited exceptions.
• Requiring day camps to close.
• Limiting capacity at weddings, funerals, and religious services, rites or ceremonies to 15 per cent occupancy per room indoors, and to the number of individuals that can maintain two metres of physical distance outdoors. This does not include social gatherings associated with these services such as receptions, which are not permitted indoors and are limited to five people outdoors.

The government says it will evaluate the impacts of the measures throughout the next four weeks to determine if it is safe to lift any restrictions or if they need to be extended.

While a stay-at-home order is not in effect during the shutdown, the province is asking all Ontarians to limit trips outside the home to necessities such as food, medication, medical appointments, supporting vulnerable community members, or exercising outdoors with members of their household.

The government is also asking employers in all industries to allow employees to work from home whenever possible.

The province’s colour-coded COVID-19 response framework will be paused for all of Ontario’s 34 public health units when the shutdown comes into effect.

In advance of the announcement of an expected provincial lockdown on Thursday (April 1), Ontario’s top health officials delivered a sobering assessment of the status of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario — and recommended a month-long province-wide stay-at-home order to bring the disease under control.

“We are in the third wave of the pandemic and, as the new variants spread, you will see that COVID is killing faster and younger,” said Adalsteinn Brown, co-chair of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table, who presented COVID-19 modelling projections along with chief medical officer of health Dr. David Williams.

“It’s spreading far more quickly than it was before, and we cannot vaccinate quickly enough to break this third wave,” Brown added.

Brown described the situation in Ontario’s hospitals now, compared to the first and second waves of the pandemic.

“It used to be that one family member, often an older parent or grandparent, would be in an intensive care unit while other members of the family would have caught a much milder form of the disease if at all,” he said. “But with the new variants, that are both more contagious and more dangerous, we’re seeing situations where whole families end up in intensive care, all at the same time.”

Brown added that, because Ontario’s health care system is already under strain, patients have to moved between regions.

“Even as people are fighting for their lives, we have to separate families,” he said. “One family ended up spread between three hospitals … another family ended up being spread between three cities, in three different hospitals, and all of them died.”

Brown pointed out that the variants of concern are resulting in younger people ending up in hospital, using the example of one physician’s observations.

“This doctor worked through the brunt of the first and second wave,” Brown said. “He told us very clearly that even at the worst of these times, he hadn’t seen this many young otherwise healthy people fighting for their lives against COVID-19.”

While vaccination is the key to long-term control, Brown said, adherence to public health measures — masks, physical distancing, hand hygiene, and staying outside if you need to meet people — are key to controlling the pandemic while people are being vaccinated.

“Sometimes we talk about public health measures and the economy, or public health measures and mental health, as a trade-off,” Brown said. “This is a false debate. The faster we get the pandemic under control, the faster we return to normal. Partial measures, half-hearted adherence, and denial prolong the pandemic and make life harder for everyone.”

Brown said this was particularly true for children and youth, with school infections reflecting what is happening in the community.

“Schools should be the last place to close, and the first to open,” Brown said.

“But as international experience shows, if we don’t get the pandemic under control, we will have to take more drastic measures for longer periods of time. If we don’t get the pandemic under control, we’ll have more sick people, some of whom will never get better. We will further damage our hospital system and the people working in it. We’ll have more unnecessary death, and it will hurt students and our society.”

Brown then presented an update on COVID-19 modelling projections, that included the following key findings:

• The third wave is here and being driven by variants of concern.
• Younger Ontarians are ending up in hospital. With the UK B.1.1.7 variant, the risk of ICU admission is two times higher and the risk of death is 1-1/2 times higher.
• COVID-19 threatens the health system ability to deal with regular ICU admissions and the ability to care for all patients.
• Vaccination is not reaching the highest-risk communities, delaying its impact as an effective strategy.
• School disruptions have a significant and highly inequitable impact on students, parents and society. Further disruptions should be minimized.
• Stay-at-home orders will control the surge, protect access to care, and increase the chance of the summer Ontarians want.

Other points raised during the presentation include:

Cases and positivity rates in most public health unit regions now exceed the criteria for them to be placed in the ‘Red-Control’ level of Ontario’s COVID-19 response framework.

The increase in cases is not the result of more testing, because testing rates have remained flat.

Most new cases are variants of concern and, compared to people infected with the earlier variants, more people with COVID-19 are hospitalized, admitted to ICU, and die if they are infected
with the variants of concern.

Short-term projections are for 6,000 cases per day by the end of April, unless there is a province-wide stay-at-home order. While either a two-week or four-week stay-at-home order will reduce daily cases to below 2,000, a two-week stay-at-home order will result in cases creeping back up to 2,000 by the end of the month.

With a stay-at-home order in place, ICU occupancy will peak at 800 beds by the end of April, and then gradually decline. Without a stay-at-home order, ICU occupancy will reach 1,000 beds. In either case, hospitals may have to begin triaging patients to manage the burden on the system.

The cumulative surgical backlog related to the pandemic has now affected 245,367 patients, with urgent surgeries making up the majority of these cases.

Essential workers, particularly racialized and marginalized communities in urban centres, are bearing the brunt of the pandemic, making vaccination of essential workers and control of workplace outbreaks critical.

While vaccinations of older Ontarians are continuing, a large percentage of them have still not received a first dose, including 17 per cent of those 80 and older, 40 per cent of those 75 to 79, and 72 per cent of those 70 to 74. Fewer older Ontarians in high-risk neighbourhoods have received vaccinations compared to more older Ontarians in low-risk neighbourhoods who have received vaccinations.

School interruptions will have significant impacts on students, families, and society. Students whose learning is interrupted by the pandemic will experience a drop in lifetime earnings and face health risks from social isolation and loss of structure, with students who are already disadvantaged being affected more.

PDF: Update on COVID-19 Projections – Ontario’s Science Advisory and Modelling Consensus Tables – April 1, 2021
Update on COVID-19 Projections - Ontario's Science Advisory and Modelling Consensus Tables - April 1, 2021
A copy of this PDF is available from covid19-sciencetable.ca.

Three COVID-19 mass vaccination clinics are set to open after the Easter long weekend in the Haliburton, Kawartha Pine Ridge District (HKPR) Health Unit region.

In a virtual media briefing on Wednesday (March 31), acting medical officer of health Dr. Ian Gemmill said clinics will be opening on Tuesday at the Fenelon Falls Community Centre in Fenelon Falls, the Campbellford Seymour Fire Hall in Trent Hills, and S.G. Nesbitt Arena in Minden.

A second mass vaccination site in Haliburton County is also expected to open at the A.J. LaRue Community Centre in Haliburton the following week.

“If you’re looking for immunization in these centres, please keep checking the provincial website,” said Dr. Gemmill. “We’ve taken the vaccine that we’ve had promised to us and put in appointments right until April 24th. As soon as those are loaded online, people can get on there and make their appointments.”

In the HKPR region, those born in 1946 or earlier are currently eligible for vaccine appointments at the soon-to-open clinics. Appointments must be made through the online provincial booking system at covid-19.ontario.ca/book-vaccine/ or by calling 1-833-943-3900.

“If you don’t see the (vaccination) site (in the provincial system), that means the appointments aren’t in yet or they’re all booked up,” Dr. Gemmill noted. “Just keep checking. If we have vaccines available, there will be appointments. Once an appointment is made, that vaccine is spoken for.”

Over the next 10 days, the health unit will have completed its target of opening six mass immunization clinics across the HKPR region. The four new mass immunization clinics will be an addition to clinics already operating at the Cobourg Community Centre in Northumberland County and the Lindsay Exhibition in the City of Kawartha Lakes.

According to provincial officials at a technical media briefing on Wednesday, as of March 29 more than 28,000 COVID-19 doses have been administered in the HKPR region and more than 2,600 people have been fully vaccinated, including all residents of area long-term care homes.

Of the region’s residents aged 80 years and older, 82 per cent have already received a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine or have booked an appointment to receive one, along with 50 per cent of residents aged 75 to 79.

Dr. Gemmill noted that while vaccine eligibility in the region still starts at 75 years of age, he anticipates eligibility will soon open up for those 70 and older as is the case in some other regions in the province.

At the Wednesday media briefing, provincial officials stated the HKPR region will receive 35,100 Pfizer doses by May 12th and 9,600 Moderna doses by April 19th, although 27,100 of all those doses have not yet been confirmed.

The province also plans to distribute 10,800 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the HKPR region in early April. These doses will be administered by local pharmacies (at least three in the region) as well as by family doctors and other primary care providers to their patients. The province has not yet announced the pharmacies and primary care providers that will receive these doses.

“We’re asking people not to call the pharmacies and family doctors about this because they will not have any information yet,” Dr. Gemmill pointed out. “Please watch the media for more information.”

Dr. Gemmill also shared his concerns about the current rise in the province’s COVID-19 cases, urging HKPR residents to continue adhering to public health measures.

“We’re not going up (in cases) here in the same worrisome degree as they are in other parts of Ontario, but things can turn on a dime,” Dr. Gemmill remarked. “It just takes a couple of ill-advised events that can lead to a number of people being infected in the area, and of course, they infect others.”

“It is time to keep adhering to personal measures even if a person has been immunized,” he added. “We’re learning that one dose of vaccine is providing pretty good protection, but until we see what happens on a population basis (how the virus is restricted in its movement from person to person in the population), I continue to recommend personal measures until we have other guidance.”

This will be Dr. Gemmill’s final week as acting medical officer of health for the HKPR district health unit. Dr. Natalie Bocking will assume the position on Monday, April 5th. Dr. Bocking has spent the past four years working as a public health physician with Thunder Bay District Health Unit and Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority. She and her family moved to the City of Kawartha Lakes in the fall of 2019.

As of Wednesday, there were 34 active cases of COVID-19 in the health unit’s region, including 18 in Northumberland and 16 in Kawartha Lakes, with 56 presumed cases of variants of concern, including 38 in Northumberland and 18 in Kawartha Lakes.

Scotland has the Loch Ness monster, the Pacific Northwest has Sasquatch, and now the Kawarthas has — the Giant Beaver?

Over the past few weeks, some residents of the Kawarthas have reported seeing a bear-sized animal with huge teeth and a long tail, emerging from the water of local lakes as the winter ice breaks up.

“At first I thought it was a small black bear that fell through the ice, until I saw those huge incisors,” says Jose Broma, who lives on Jack Lake near Apsley and reported the first sighting.

Broma, who says he was too busy running away to take a photo, then told his next-door neighbour about his experience. That’s when he discovered his neighbour had also had a close encounter with the same animal.

“She didn’t want to tell anybody because she was afraid they’d think she was crazy,” Broma says. “She was kind of relieved to find out I saw it too.”

The two of them then created a Facebook group, which now has more than 200 members from across the Kawarthas who all claim to have seen a similar creature. The Facebook group includes several photos of a large animal, but all of them are out of focus.

A biologist with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry before he retired, Broma firmly believes the animal is actually a descendant of the prehistoric giant beaver (Castoroides), a huge rodent that roamed North America more than 10,000 years ago during the last ice age, along with the mastodon and giant sloth.

All these large animals, known as megafauna, went extinct during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition period. Scientists continue to debate whether the animals were killed off by climate change or by the Clovis people, who colonized North America around 13,000 years ago.

Paleontologists have found giant beaver bones and teeth from Ohio to southern Ontario to the Yukon Territory. References to the giant beaver can be found in the oral history of various Indigenous peoples in North America, some of whom may even have used giant beaver teeth as wood chiselling tools.

The largest rodent in North America at the time, the giant beaver was about two metres long and weighed up to 100 kilograms, with 15-centimetre-long incisors and a tail up to 64 centimetres long.

There have never been any previous reported sightings of an animal resembling the giant beaver in North America, let alone in the Kawarthas.

Broma has his own theory why the sightings have only happened in the last few weeks.

“I think it’s because of COVID,” Broma explains. “I’ve read in the news that lots of wildlife around the world has been coming out of the forests and jungles. Maybe the giant beaver thinks it’s finally safe to come out of the water now because there aren’t so many people around.”

kawarthaNOW emailed scientists at several Ontario universities for comment on this story, but only received a single response.

“This has got to be an April Fool’s joke, right?” the email said.

All images from this story come from actual research on the giant beaver at Western University in London, Ontario. A May 2019 study uncovered a possible reason why the giant beaver went extinct at the end of the last ice age (spoiler: unlike the modern beaver, the giant beaver didn’t eat wood).