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COVID-19 cases continued to climb steeply Saturday in Grey-Bruce but so far the Omicron variant hasn’t been lab confirmed here.
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That doesn’t mean it isn’t here and Grey-Bruce Health Unit staff have been treating each new COVID case as if it were more catching Omicron variant, said Dr. Ian Arra, the medical officer of health in Grey-Bruce on Saturday.
He’s still waiting for genome sequencing results of a suspected case of Omicron tied to sports transmission at a hockey tournament outside this area, where there is Omicron, he said.
The provincial science advisory table has projected Omicron will drive cases to skyrocket. It that happens in Grey-Bruce too, and case and contact tracing is overwhelmed here, high-risk outbreaks only would be public-health-managed, the province has said. Then infected people would have to do tracing and management for themselves.
But it may be possible to control this variant here, meaning keeping cases down to around 20 or fewer per day, Arra said. People need to get their booster shots as soon as possible, he said.
“We really need people in Grey-Bruce to do a bit more,” Arra said. “Just to stay vigilant, until we try to figure out if this is controllable or not.”
The Grey Bruce Health Unit reported 31 new, lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19: six in Saugeen Shores, five in Owen Sound, three each in Arran-Elderslie and South Bruce, two in Chatsworth and one each in Grey Highlands, Hanover, Meaford, Northern Bruce Peninsula, South Bruce Peninsula, Blue Mountains and West Grey.
There are now 150 active cases of the pandemic virus and 1,400-plus high risk contacts, an estimate which is “evolving by the hour,” the health unit’s daily situation report said Saturday. Numbers reported were current to midnight Friday.
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Four Grey-Bruce residents with COVID-19 are in a local hospital, 24 Grey-Bruce residents have died from the virus. Now 125 health-care workers have contracted the virus since the start of the pandemic here in early 2020.
Five schools in Grey-Bruce have active outbreaks: Timothy Christian School, St. Dominique Savio, St. Mary’s High School, all in Owen Sound; Mildmay-Carrick Public School in Mildmay; and John Diefenbaker Senior School in Hanover. Outbreaks require transmission from one person to at least one other person within the school setting.
The Timothy Christian School’s Before and After School Program is the lone child-care centre with a declared outbreak.
Dismissed cohorts, typically classes, are groups in which there’s a probable or confirmed case of COVID but no transmission detected within the setting. Eight Grey-Bruce schools have dismissed cohorts: Owen Sound District Secondary School, Saugeen District Senior School in Port Elgin, Dawnview Public School in Hanover, Hepworth Central Public School, Kincardine District Senior School, Grey Highlands Secondary School in Flesherton, Peninsula Shores District School in Wiarton, and Macphail Memorial Elementary School in Flesherton.
Late last week estimated more than 70 per of the current caseload within the student population stems from organized sports and associated activities. That still held Saturday, he said. But basketball is the only sport where there is local evidence of transmission during gameplay.
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Activities such as attending team parties and gatherings, carpooling, busing and commuting to games with people other than those in one’s household, socializing in dressing rooms and travelling to areas with higher rates of COVID-19 to play in games and tournaments have all helped contribute to the recent caseload, Arra said.
“Although we have the capacity to manage the high number of cases and the over 1,000 close contacts currently, we need your continued vigilance over the coming few days. We are cautiously optimistic we collectively can provide Grey-Bruce with safe holidays,” a health unit news release said Friday.
Arra asks Grey-Bruce to 'do a bit more' to limit COVID spread - Owen Sound Sun Times
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