Thunder Bay District expected to move to lockdown, says medical officer of health

The medical officer of health for the Thunder Bay District says people should prepare to move back into lockdown.

The district has exceeded 300 active COVID-19 cases this week, with 257 reported over the last seven days.

The Thunder Bay District Health Unit announced 33 new cases on Thursday, as well as its 29th death related to COVID-19. Seventeen are close contacts of existing cases, seven had no known exposure to the virus, one was at the Thunder Bay District Jail outbreak and the source of exposure for eight has yet to be determined.

Dr. Janet DeMille said the area, which has been in the Red-Control stage of the province's colour-coded pandemic response framework since emerging from the stay-at-home-order, will likely be moved to the lockdown level as it has one of the highest rates of cases per population in Ontario.

"I think what we would see the more we're open is more spread. It will prevent some of the spread," she said in a Thursday interview on CBC Thunder Bay's morning show, Superior Morning.

"It is challenging because our numbers, it's not necessarily going to be able to control our numbers, just going into lockdown."

DeMille said the outbreak in the vulnerable homeless and precariously housed population is the biggest factor in the rising case numbers.

"It's hard to define that particular outbreak, but I would say it's at least 50 per cent," she said.

One day earlier, Thunder Bay mayor Bill Mauro held a press conference where he urged senior levels of government to respond to the city's requests for assistance, particularly for funding and staffing relief for the city's isolation shelter.

"We know that's a very stressed system right now," DeMille said.

Mauro had declared a health and social services state of emergency in relation to COVID-19 for isolation support three weeks ago, but he said the provincial government had yet to respond.

DeMille, who commended the mayor's approach, said she has been advocating to the province for that vulnerable population to be prioritized with local vaccine rollout.

"It's a bit challenging with the priorities the government has set. In many ways, I would like to go a little bit outside those priorities to really figure out what we can do with respect to this outbreak," she said.

Full shift of schools online 'on the table'

DeMille said the high case numbers in the community have spilled over into schools, as trustees for one school board have called for a pause to in-class learning.

Earlier this week, Lakehead District School Board trustees passed a motion calling for approval from the health unit, as well as the ministries of health and education, to transition all schools to virtual learning for two weeks as COVID-19 case numbers continue to soar in the community.

The board has four schools — three elementary and one high school — that are closed to in-person learning this week after outbreaks were declared. Cases have also been associated with a number of other schools, which are continuing to operate in class.

Case and contact management has resulted in over 570 students — over seven per cent of its enrolment — and 55 teachers having to isolate because of potential COVID-19 exposure.

DeMille said she recognized the reasons why the board trustees have requested the change, but didn't give a commitment that she would endorse the complete shift to online.

"The switching schools in Thunder Bay to virtual options is on the table right now," she said Thursday morning.

The Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board announced a case had been identified associated with St. Patrick High School late Wednesday night.

Variant cases potentially detected

DeMille said there aren't any confirmed cases involving variants of concern in the district, but there have been three results that have been screened for further testing. She said the health unit hasn't been able to identify the individuals in their test reports.

"I'm hoping we can get answers [Thursday] or [Friday] about that, and we would be able to follow up," she said, adding it's possible that the individuals have primary addresses within the Thunder Bay District but were not here when they were tested.

"Those tests would take two weeks, so presumably they're already being processed to confirm whether they are the [variants of concern] or not. I would anticipate maybe in the next week or 10 days we would know."

You can hear the full interview with Dr. DeMille on CBC's Superior Morning here.