With the confinements lifted and travel opening, some First Nations in northwestern Ontario are seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases, just as the province’s seventh wave is gaining ground.
There are 514 active cases in the region, a big jump from the 124 reported just two weeks ago, said Dr. Lloyd Douglas, a public health doctor at the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority.
“We are now experiencing an increase in cases in three of our communities,” Douglas said.
About 450 of the 514 active cases are in Sandy Lake, Webequie and Poplar Hill, according to the health authority.
The increase in cases comes when Ontario public health officials announced that the province has officially entered its seventh wave, this time driven by the subvariant Omicron BA.5.
“Unfortunately, yes, we are in another wave,” Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s medical director, told CBC News on Wednesday after Ontario’s COVID-19 scientific advisory board indicated exponential growth in most public health units.
Douglas said there are several factors involved that would explain the increase in remote communities in northwestern Ontario.
“Regional leaders lifted the regional blockade several weeks ago,” he said. “Travel has already reopened and we have members of the community, rightly so, who travel, do their business and return to the community.
“Unfortunately, people would have had COVID and then come back,” Douglas said, adding that post-trip control and quarantine policies are still in place.
However, Douglas said, the number of cases is increasing due to variants and declining immunity to vaccines.
“While the fourth dose has been available to community members for quite some time, the actual coverage of the fourth dose is not where we would like it to be compared to … the coverage of the second dose,” he said. to say. “So there are multiple factors that have led to adoption in some of our communities and we expected to see some increase after the communities had opened up a bit.”
Other measures remain in place, including a recommendation to wear masks indoors and social distancing. Antiviral treatments are also available in communities for high-risk people, Douglas said.
However, this is being offset by the lack of health care providers, which is a particular problem in communities with a high number of cases.
“In terms of the services that would be provided at the nursing station, this could be reduced only to emergency services and emergency services,” Douglas said. “Some services may fall along the way. But luckily we haven’t heard of any nursing stations closed at the moment.”
The increase has not yet materialized in Thunder Bay
Meanwhile, in the Thunder Bay area, there were 88 confirmed cases of the virus, according to the Thursday morning update from the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. Of these, 22 were in the hospital and four in the intensive care unit.
Dr. Janet DeMille, a Thunder Bay health doctor, said Thursday that she does not expect Ontario to issue any more mask warrants, unless a new variant suddenly appears.
But masking recommendations will likely stay in place, DeMille said.
“We have a lot of measures in place, and it’s kind of like those layers of protection,” DeMille said. “An example I’m thinking of is that we’re working a lot with various environments of coexistence around infection prevention and control measures.
“Certainly, I still encourage people to wear a mask when they’re in indoor public spaces. I’m checking things around … indoor ventilation, just because that can really help without expecting people to do anything like a mask.”
DeMille said moving forward will involve finding the right balance and adjusting anti-COVID measures as needed, based on what is happening with the virus itself.
For example, DeMille said, cases of variant BA.5 in the region have been confirmed: two of the 34 samples analyzed during the week of June 5-11 were confirmed to be this variant.
DeMille said he expects more cases of BA.5 to appear in the area, as it appears to be “more transmissible” than previous variants.
“From what I’ve seen, they’re very similar symptoms. So the usual fever, chills, potentially cough, sore throat and fatigue, and muscle aches and pains.
“I don’t see evidence that it’s actually more serious than BA.1 or BA.2,” DeMille said. “There will still be people who will be hospitalized.
“I hope that with a surge, hospitalization figures will go up, although some people will probably need ICUs,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem to be worse than being one or two, at least what we know right now.”