Case counts continue to rise in Simcoe-Muskoka, even with limited testing, with a 40 per cent increase in cases reported the week of March 27 compared to the week of March 20.
There were 1,003 new cases reported to the health unit during the week of March 27, which is up from 716 cases reported the week of March 20.
Hospitalizations were steady for several days, and have started to increase again according to the latest report.
The latest COVID update from the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, published April 6, includes five new hospitalizations and two deaths.
The two deaths reported today include two women over 79 years old from Simcoe County. One woman died on March 25 and one died on April 4.
There are 20 people from the region currently hospitalized because of COVID-19.
Testing has captured 414 new COVID cases in the region since the last update on April 4. 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. 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.
The health unit reported 53 deaths in February, and 21 so far in March.
Since the start of the pandemic, the local health unit has confirmed 39,520 cases of COVID-19 with 37,652 of those cases recovered and 441 cases ending in death.
Of the deaths reported by the health unit since March 2020, 387 were COVID-related, 43 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 38 active outbreaks in Simcoe-Muskoka, down from 39 outbreaks on March 30. The current active outbreaks include 16 in institutional settings (hospitals, long-term care, retirement homes), 15 in congregate settings (group homes, shelters), and seven at child-care centres.
The health unit is no longer reporting case counts associated with individual outbreaks. 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.
According to Collingwood General and Marine Hospital reporting as of April 6, there are five 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.
