Public Health Sudbury reporting 37 new cases of COVID-19 for April 9

Sudbury's health unit is reporting 37 new cases of COVID-19 for today, April 9. Public Health also said there are now 242 active cases being monitored. That is a drop of 20 active cases from Thursday.

Also, since the Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) began tracking COVID-19 cases just over one year ago, there have been 1,656 total COVID-19 cases confirmed locally.PHSD also said 1,414 of those cases have been resolved.

With respect to where the newest COVID-19 cases might have occurred, the Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) daily update page reported that 34 of the new cases were found to have occurred within the Greater Sudbury Area. One new case was reported from the wider Sudbury district. Two new cases were listed for the Manitoulin district. 

In terms of possible causes of the new cases, PHSD reported seven cases associated with outbreak, six new cases linked to close contact of a confirmed case, one case that was travel related, two cases with no known epidemiological link and 21 cases listed as "under investigation".

PHSD also reports general demographics each day about the people who are becoming infected.

Epidemiological data showed that the majority of cases are persons in the 20 to 39 age category with 555 total cases (an increase of seven over Thursday).

The next highest group number was 423 cases for the 40 to 59 age group (an increase of 13).

The next highest number was 368 cases for the 19 and under age group (an increase of four).

Seniors in the 60 to 79 age group amounted to 227 cases total (an increase of 12), and people aged 80 and over are currently the lowest category with 82 cases (no increase). There were also zero cases reported in the "unspecified category".

The numbers above may not completely correspond with the daily case count because PHSD does not always report changes on the day they occur.

In terms of COVID-19 testing, 221,869 tests have been performed in the PHSD region as of today, an increase of 1,029. 

As for local vaccinations, PHSD reports a total of 45,549 vaccines given in the entire PHSD area as of April 8.

Variants of concern

PHSD is also reporting there are still five cases of "confirmed" variants of the COVID-19 virus, with no increase after several days.

There are, however, 493 cases that are "screened positive" for variants of concern, an increase of 16 cases over the number reported on 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. 

At Sudbury's Health Sciences North, as of April 9, there are 16 patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the hospital. The HSN website reports, this included five COVID patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). 

There are an additional 28 admitted patients currently being "investigated" for COVID-19, and awaiting test results. None of those patients being investigated is in the ICU at this time.

On the provincial COVID-19 register today, the Ontario government daily website reported 4,227 new confirmed COVID-19 cases across the province. Also today, the province reported 18 new deaths had occurred in the previous 24 hours.