THUNDER BAY – A “sixth wave” of COVID-19 infections may have crested in the Thunder Bay area, says the district’s medical officer of health Dr. Janet DeMille.
Indicators including hospitalizations, outbreaks in vulnerable settings, and wastewater signal all showed signs of peaking last week, DeMille said in an interview.
However, she cautioned that restricted access to PCR testing has made it difficult to properly assess the situation locally.
The provincial government ended access to testing for most Ontarians in December during the Omicron wave under overwhelming demand.
It has since expanded PCR testing to a limited number of higher-risk groups including those who are immunocompromised, anyone 70 and older, and those 60 and older with fewer than three vaccine doses.
“I think it’s actually really hard to know exactly what’s happening in our communities just because of the data we get and what we don’t get, so we don’t have that complete picture of what’s happening,” she said. “But we can look at the data we have to see if things are going up or down. I would say actually that last week, we did seem to plateau.”
The health unit’s figure for COVID hospitalizations in the district fell by 15 Monday.
There remained 35 COVID-positive patients at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, a slight decline, though the number in ICU rose to six.
The health unit identified a “sixth wave” of infections that hit Thunder Bay beginning in mid-April, after recovering in March from an earlier Omicron-driven spike
The wave caused a sustained period of higher COVID-19 hospitalizations, increasing wait times at the ER, and a large number of outbreaks in long-term care homes, hospitals, and other vulnerable settings where outbreaks are still monitored.
DeMille urged people to continue to exercise caution, saying gathering outdoors and staying home when sick will help prevent spreading the virus, but said the public health approach has shifted away from mandates.
“I think what we want to do is not necessarily limit or restrict activities, but everybody to look at their own circumstances and apply those layers of protection,” she said. “One of the things, the weather is getting much nicer, and it’s very safe to be outside. Even if somebody has COVID, there’s just such great ventilation being outside that gathering outside is a fairly safe thing.”
“I do see people taking the precautions – people are masking, staying home if they’re sick. We have lots of people coming in for immunizations… I think people are doing the right things, overall.”
With files from Mitchell Ringos, TBT News.
