Sudbury's health unit has created a new online tool to let people in the community be more aware of the risk of respiratory diseases.
The Respiratory Activity Report is on the webpage that was previously described as the COVID-19 Risk Index. The webpage now includes additional information on the risk of Influenza in the area, as well as COVID.
Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) said the idea is to have a central reference for information on confirmed cases of influenza, on flu outbreaks as well as any information on COVID-19 to help people make informed decisions on how to prevent the spread of disease.
PHSD Medical Officer of Health Dr. Penny Sutcliffe said one of the roles of public health is to keep people informed.
“We anticipated a tougher fall as we continued to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and entered a difficult respiratory illness season. One of our roles and responsibilities at Public Health is to monitor health risks through surveillance and keep people informed to help them make decisions to protect themselves,” Sutcliffe said.
“We continue to monitor local and provincial indicators and the enhanced COVID-19 Risk Index and Respiratory Activity Report allows us to share more information. Together, we can make it more difficult for illness to spread by using a risk-based approach to inform our personal decisions,” Sutcliffe added.
PHSD said the Ontario Respiratory Pathogen Bulletin is used to inform the four new local influenza activity levels. The levels are green, low risk or no activity; yellow for a moderate risk or sporadic activity; orange for a high risk or localized activity; and red for a very high risk or widespread activity.
On Monday, the flu activity indicator was localized at orange in the Sudbury health jurisdiction.
The overall COVID-19 risk was set at moderate, or yellow.
The health unit said although anyone can get influenza, it is the very young, the elderly people and those with certain medical conditions that are at higher risk of complications.
Public Health said it recommends everyone over six months of age get the flu shot to help keep themselves and their community healthy.
Public Health said it will use the COVID-19 Risk Index and Respiratory Activity Report to share the most current recommendations to prevent the spread of illness. As community transmission and risk levels increase, our personal protective measures should also increase—get back to basics such as masking, getting a COVID-19 booster dose, and staying away from others if they’re unwell, said the public health news release.
Len Gillis covers health care and mining for Sudbury.com.
