There are no new cases reported in the region today as the health unit does not report updates on the weekend.
Yesterday, the region’s medical officer of health cast some doubt on the outbreak previously reported at Collingwood Nursing Home.
Though three women at the home, one in her 80s, one in her 90s, and one in her 100s, previously tested positive for the coronavirus, they have since also tested negative.
For now, Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health for Simcoe Muskoka is keeping Collingwood Nursing Home in ongoing outbreak status, but he and his staff are investigating the test results further.
The three women had no symptoms when they first tested positive, and were tested as part of the provincially mandated universal testing of all staff and residents at long-term care facilities.
According to Gardner, only about 0.2 per cent of all the tests done on people without symptoms of COVID-19 in the entire province as part of that universal testing exercise came back positive.
“It’s unclear how many of those positives were true positives as opposed to false positives,” said Gardner during a media conference yesterday. “When you test large volumes of people … where you have no symptoms and a low prevalence of infection, you can have a majority of the positives you get being false positives.”
The regional medical officer of health further stated he isn’t convinced random or mass testing of people without a single symptom of the coronavirus will be helpful.
“It’s unclear to me the role of potentially random testing of asymptomatic individuals for acute infection,” said Gardner.
He is, however, supportive of testing for immunity, and said both the federal and provincial governments will be proceeding with such a test.
Public Health Ontario has reported 412 new cases of COVID-19 today, as well as 379 new recoveries and 27 deaths. This week, the daily cases reported by the province were slightly higher than last week. From May 10 to 16, the province reported between 258 to 428 new cases every day. From May 17 to May 23, the province reported between 304 and 441 new cases every day, with lower testing rates.
In the Simcoe-Muskoka region, the daily case numbers were opposite to those reported by the province.
Gardner said for the week of May 4 to 10, the weekly incidence rate was 10.1 cases per 100,000 population (about 8-10 per day). For the week of May 11 to 17, the weekly incidence rate was 8.5 cases per 100,000 population (about five per day).
The last case confirmed in Collingwood was reported on May 19, 2020.
“I think it’s still important for us here to never take for granted that the control we’ve achieved has been through our physical distancing practice,” said Gardner, noting other control measures such as handwashing, staying home, and getting tested and isolating when symptoms develop have also contributed to curbing the spread in the region.
Collingwood has opened dog parks and sports fields for individual use, and The Blue Mountains announced it will be doing the same by May 27.
Collingwood Public Library will be offering curbside pickup starting Monday.
Yesterday, staff at Sunset Manor performed a choreographed dance in the parking lot to We are One World. You can watch a video of the dance here.
Today’s essential workers of the day are Jennifer Hose and Lynda Weir.
