The number of COVID-positive patients at the local hospital has nearly tripled over the weekend.
The Collingwood General and Marine Hospital is reporting as of April 11, there are 11 COVID-positive inpatients at the hospital, up from four reported on April 8. This can include people admitted because of COVID and those hospitalized for other reasons who also test positive for COVID.
COVID infections are on the rise in the region with 1,706 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 11, includes two deaths and seven new hospitalizations.
Two Simcoe County men, both over 79 years old, died after contracting COVID-19. One man died on April 4 and the other died on April 7.
The health unit reported 54 deaths in February, 23 in March, and six so far in April.
There are 22 people from the region currently hospitalized because of COVID-19. This number does not include people who were hospitalized for other reasons and also test positive for COVID-19.
Testing has captured 532 new COVID cases in the region since the last update on April 8. Because testing is not available to everyone, case counts are underestimated.
There were 1,095 new cases reported to the health unit during the week of March 27, and about 1,282 cases reported between April 3-9, which could still increase as more test results are delivered to the health unit.
Since the start of the pandemic, the local health unit has confirmed 40,493 cases of COVID-19 with 38,235 of those cases recovered and 448 cases ending in death.
Of the deaths reported by the health unit since March 2020, 390 were COVID-related, 47 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 three times higher for unvaccinated people than for vaccinated. The rate of admission to an intensive care unit is five 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 10 hospitalizations per 100,000 unvaccinated people. For fully vaccinated, the average weekly COVID-19 hospitalization rate was 2.9 people per 100,000 people.
To date, 83 per cent of the population aged five years old and up are fully vaccinated with two or more doses, and 18 per cent of the region's total population (including children) is unvaccinated.
There are 51 active outbreaks in Simcoe-Muskoka, up from 37 outbreaks on April 4. The current active outbreaks include 22 in institutional settings (hospitals, long-term care, retirement homes), 20 in congregate settings (group homes, shelters), and nine 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 51 per cent of the region's ICU beds are full and about 26 per cent of the ventilator beds are occupied. Acute care occupancy is highest with 94 per cent of the beds in the region currently full.
