THUNDER BAY – COVID-19 Update – The Thunder Bay District Health Unit announces, “With changes to PCR testing eligibility and the case and contact management done by public health, the Thunder Bay District Health Unit (TBDHU) is updating its COVID-19 Dashboard on the TBDHU website to provide more relevant data on the COVID-19 situation in the area.”
The following changes will be made to the COVID-19 Dashboard:
- New lab confirmed cases will be reported. These numbers will reflect those eligible for testing under the new guidance. These are primarily individuals who belong to specific risk groups and therefore only reflect a proportion of the overall number of people with COVID-19 in the TBDHU area. The 7-day incidence rate of these lab-confirmed cases will continue to be reported, as it is useful in seeing trends over time.
- Institutional outbreaks will continue to be reported. These include outbreaks in long-term care homes, hospitals, and other congregate living settings, including correctional facilities and shelters. Those that are publicly reported will be listed. In addition, the overall number of outbreaks related to ‘high-risk settings’, including congregate living settings, will be provided.
- A new graph depicting hospitalizations over time will be included. This will reflect the total number of individuals hospitalized (including those in ICU) for COVID-19 in hospitals in the TBDHU area.
- TBDHU will differentiate between the data before and after the changes to testing eligibility on all existing graphs, for testing and cases over time, as the periods are not comparable.
The updated dashboard will launch on Monday, January 24, 2022, and will be updated on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (and not daily).
The daily PSA with case announcements will be discontinued.
In addition, TBDHU also receives data from the wastewater surveillance initiative from testing done at the Thunder Bay wastewater treatment plant. TBHDU is currently working with the City and provincial partners to publically report this data in a meaningful way.