COVID infections are on the rise in the region with 1,192 cases already confirmed through limited testing in April.
In both March and February, the health unit confirmed about 2,800 COVID cases, which was a dramatic decrease from the 10,539 cases reported in January in the region.
The latest COVID update from the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, published April 8, includes five deaths and no new hospitalizations.
Two Simcoe County men, one over 79 years old and one between 45 and 64 years old, died after contracting COVID on April 1 and 3 respectively. A Muskoka man over 79 years old died on April 7 and a Simcoe County woman over 79 years old died on March 25.
The final death reported today was a woman over 79 years old from Simcoe County who died on Feb. 26, but her death was not reported by the health unit until today. Her case was linked to an outbreak.
The health unit reported 54 deaths in February, 23 in March, and four so far in April.
There are 18 people from the region currently hospitalized because of COVID-19.
Testing has captured 468 new COVID cases in the region since the last update on April 8. Because testing is not available to everyone, case counts are underestimated.
Case counts are climbing in the region with a rolling seven-day average of about 187 new cases per day and a positivity rate of about 16.5 per cent. At the height of the omicron wave, the health unit reported about 683 lab-confirmed cases per day and there were about 59 new cases per day at the beginning of March.
There were 1,092 new cases reported to the health unit during the week of March 27, which is up by 51 per cent from 715 cases reported the week of March 20.
Since the start of the pandemic, the local health unit has confirmed 39,976 cases of COVID-19 with 37,886 of those cases recovered and 446 cases ending in death.
Of the deaths reported by the health unit since March 2020, 389 were COVID-related, 46 deaths were not related to COVID-19 but the person tested positive, and for 11 of them, the cause of death is unknown or pending.
Based on data collected since July in Simcoe-Muskoka, the rate of hospitalization from COVID-19 is four times higher for unvaccinated people than for vaccinated. The rate of admission to an intensive care unit is eight times higher for unvaccinated people, and the rate of death is three times higher for an unvaccinated person versus someone with two or more doses of a vaccine.
Since July, the average weekly rate of hospitalization for an infected unvaccinated person in the region was seven hospitalizations per 100,000 unvaccinated people. For fully vaccinated, the average weekly COVID-19 hospitalization rate was 1.7 people per 100,000 people.
To date, 82 per cent of the population aged five years old and up are fully vaccinated with two or more doses, and 19 per cent of the region's total population (including children) is unvaccinated.
There are 47 active outbreaks in Simcoe-Muskoka, up from 38 outbreaks on April 1. The current active outbreaks include 20 in institutional settings (hospitals, long-term care, retirement homes), 19 in congregate settings (group homes, shelters), and eight at child-care centres.
A list of outbreaks is available on the health unit website here.
According to monitoring of the region's hospitals by the health unit, about 63 per cent of the region's ICU beds are full and about 35 per cent of the ventilator beds are occupied. Acute care occupancy is highest with 88 per cent of the beds in the region currently full.
The Collingwood General and Marine Hospital is reporting as of April 8, there are four COVID-positive inpatients at the hospital. This can include people admitted because of COVID and those hospitalized for other reasons who also test positive for COVID.
