Thunder Bay – COVID-19 Update – For Wednesday, January 19th, the Thunder Bay District Health Unit report 104 (one hundred four) new COVID-19 cases in residents in the TBDHU Region. Current active cases is now at 330. TBDHU is reporting one death due to COVID-19. That individual passed away in intensive care on Saturday.
64 cases have been resolved. There are five fewer patients in hospital.
Causes of COVID-19
- 13 Household contact
- 15 Other close contact
- 16 No known exposure
- 60 Pending
Locations of Cases of COVID-19
- 93 Thunder Bay and surrounding areas
- 6 District communities
- 5 First Nation communities
The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre as of yesterday has 21 patients in the facility being treated for COVID-19. Six of those patients were in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital. There are now as of this morning’s report five fewer patients in the hospital.
The TBRHSC has put the facility’s internal pandemic response to Grey – Lockdown Level.
This includes mandatory COVID-19 testing for new admissions. The TBRHSC is currently at 101.2% occupancy with the Intensive Care Unit at 86.4%.
THRHSC is also restricting access to some contractors and vendors.
TBRHSC’s Incident Management Team (IMT) continues to meet daily given the fast-changing nature of COVID-19, provincial regulations, and their impact on operations. Ensuring the availability of specialized acute care services is a priority and TBRHSC are prepared to respond at all times.
The proactive measures currently being taken include:
- Opening a dedicated COVID-19 Care Unit on 3B to allow patients to be cared for in a specific type of setting that keeps them and others safe
- Reducing the allowable number of Essential Care Partners – Inpatients and outpatients will be granted one ECP unless indicated otherwise
- Pausing non-emergent and non-urgent surgeries and procedures as per Ministry Directive #2 – Patients impacted by this change will be contacted.
NOTE: As of December 31, testing for COVID-19 has been limited to the most vulnerable individuals and individuals associated with the highest risk settings. This means that confirmed cases will significantly underestimate the true number of people with COVID-19 in the TBDHU region. From this point forward, case rates and percent positivity should not be compared to dates before these testing criteria changes.
In addition, through data quality checks, 1 case reported previously by TBDHU was removed from the TBDHU case count. This was be reflected in the overall case count today.
On reporting deaths, the TBDHU says that getting the data completely depends on autopsy, doctor notes, etc. it can be as soon as minutes or as long as a month.