THUNDER BAY – On Wednesday, the Nova Scotia government announced it plans to shift its daily reporting focus from the number of positive cases to hospitalizations and testing numbers.
Dr. Janet DeMille, medical officer of health at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, said she sees the logic in making the shift, but also sees the value in continuing to report case numbers as an indicator of just how widespread COVID-19 is in the district.
She also cautioned that the daily numbers are likely being vastly under-reported, as testing centres in the province are stretched to capacity and beyond as the Omicron variant takes hold. Provincially, more than 10,400 cases, a record high, were reported on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Thunder Bay District Health Unit reported 102 more cases, its second-highest single-day total since the pandemic began, leaving the region with 312 active cases.
“Cases can provide a sense of what’s happening and the burden in any particular area, including ours. But there’s a lot of inaccuracy in the number because it doesn’t necessarily reflect the true number of COVID-19 cases that we have in our area or even provincially,” DeMille said.
“One of the reasons for that is we only hear about cases when somebody actually gets that PCR test and they come back as positive.”
DeMille said she also sees the value in reporting other metrics, which can paint a better picture of the severity of the cases being detected in the District of Thunder Bay.
“I think we have to look at how we’re reporting,” said DeMille. “When somebody’s in hospital, they’re easier to count,” DeMille said. “I think going forward we will be looking at how we may be changing our reporting, but also how the province may be changing that as well.”
DeMille said she is awaiting further guidance from the province, some of which is expected to be delivered on Thursday afternoon by chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore, for next moves in the fight to slow the latest wave of positive cases, largely fuelled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
One of the things she’d like to see addressed is a widening of availability of rapid antigen tests, which can be used at home to allow people to quickly learn if they might have COVID-19 and immediately start isolation.
It’s another step in the COVID-19 fight, DeMille said.
“Rapid antigen testing is another tool that we could use to still be able to go about our business. People getting tested and then isolating if they have a positive test (is important),” DeMille said.
The goal, DeMille said, is to ward off a surge of COVID-19 patients from overwhelming hospitals, in particular intensive care units.
The more people that know they’re positive means the fewer people out and about spreading it.
At present, there are only a handful of cases admitted to Thunder Bay Regional, though an outbreak was recently declared on a unit at St. Joseph’s hospital.
“If the hospitals or health care are very busy managing COVID, then they will have to delay a lot of other things that are already backlogged because of the pandemic and people will not be able to necessarily get the care in a timely fashion that they need,” DeMille said.
