Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) has reported that there are 41 new cases of COVID-19 in the area for Thursday, March 18.
PHSD also said there are now 261 active cases being actively monitored, an increase of 19 from Wednesday.
This means that since the health unit began tracking COVID-19 cases one year ago, there have now been 1,100 total COVID-19 cases confirmed locally. PHSD also said 839 of those cases have been resolved locally.
With respect to where the new cases might have occurred, the PHSD daily update page reported that 40 of the cases were found to have occurred within the Greater Sudbury Area, with one occurring in the Sudbury District.
With respect to possible causes of the new cases, PHSD reported seven of the cases are linked to close contact with a confirmed case. Seven of today's cases currently have no known epidemiological link, while the other 27 remain under investigation.
PHSD also reports general demographics each day to provide basic information on the people who are becoming infected.
Of Thursday's 41 new cases, five were in the 19 and under age group, 15 were between the ages of 20 to 39, 14 were in the age range of 40 to 59, five were ages 60 to 79 and two were over 80 years old.
VARIANTS:
PHSD is also reporting there are still only three cases of "confirmed" variants of the COVID-19 virus.
This hasn't changed in more than a week. There are however, 208 cases that are "screened positive" for variants of concern, an increase of 11 since Wednesday's report.
THREE OUTBREAKS
At Sudbury's Health Sciences North, the number of COVID-19 cases is rising. As reported at noon today, Thursday March 18, there are 21 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the hospital. According to the HSN website, this included seven COVID patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
There are 32 additional admitted patients currently being "investigated" for COVID-19. One of those patients is in the ICU at this time.
The hospital is also coping with three distinct outbreaks, one on the fourth floor, one on the sixth floor, both in the South Tower and one on the seventh floor - North Tower.
Accordingly, the hospital has imposed new visitor restrictions, but hospital services are continuing.
On the provincial COVID-19 register for Thursday, the Ontario government daily website reported there were 1,553 new confirmed COVID-19 cases across the province.
Also today, the province reported 15 new deaths had occurred in the previous 24 hours and 1,236 new recoveries.
