Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) has reported that there are 34 new cases of COVID-19 in the area for March 20.
PHSD also said there are now 268 active cases being actively monitored, a decreased of one case from Friday.
This means that since the health unit began tracking COVID-19 cases one year ago, there have now been 1,164 total COVID-19 cases confirmed locally.
PHSD also said 896 of those cases have been resolved locally.
With respect to where the new cases might have occurred, the PHSD daily update page reported that 33 cases were found to have occurred within the Greater Sudbury Area and one in the Sudbury District.
With respect to possible causes of the new cases, PHSD reported three cases as outbreak associated.
Twenty-seven new cases were reported as close contact of a confirmed case. One new case is travel-related. Six new cases were listed as under investigation.
Nine new cases were described as no known epidemiological link. These numbers do not correspond with the case count because PHSD does not always reveal new cases on the day they happen.
PHSD also reports general demographics each day to provide basic information on the people who are becoming infected.
This shows that the majority of cases are persons in the 20 to 39 age category with 405 total cases (eight new cases).
Next highest number was 275 cases for 40 to 59 age group (11 new cases) followed by 272 cases for the 19 and under age group (eight new cases).
Seniors in the 60 to 79 age group had only 140 cases total (eight new cases), and people aged 80 and over were the lowest category with 68 cases (no new cases) and four cases where the age was not specified (a decrease of one case).
VARIANTS:
PHSD is also reporting there are still only three cases of "confirmed" variants of the COVID-19 virus.
There are however, 246 cases that are "screened positive" for variants of concern, an increase of 15 cases since Thursday.
PHSD said additional time is required to genetically-sequence the virus in a positive sample and confirm it as a COVID-19 variant of concern.
THREE HOSPITAL OUTBREAKS
The most recent case information reported by Sudbury's Health Sciences North was at noon yesterday. On Friday, March 19, there were 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the hospital. According to the HSN website, this included eight COVID patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
There are 19 additional admitted patients currently being "investigated" for COVID-19. Two 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 today, the Ontario government daily website reported there were 1,829 new confirmed COVID-19 cases across the province. Also today, the province reported 11 new deaths had occurred in the previous 24 hours.
