It looks like it will be business as usual for the time being when it comes to reporting daily COVID-case counts by Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD).
This follows last Thursday's announcement from the province that COVID testing procedures would be changing and that ordinary citizens with no specific history of disease would no longer be eligible for PCR testing. The PCR test, also known as the polymerase chain reaction, or molecular test, is considered the gold standard for COVID-19 testing.
PHSD said today that it is evaluating procedures to determine the best indicator of the severity of illness, but in the meantime it will continue to report local cases. It was not described in any detail how this would take place.
"Public Health Sudbury and Districts is evaluating current COVID-19 reporting practices to assess whether changes are needed based on the provincial announcement last week regarding changes to COVID-19 PCR testing eligibility," PHSD said in an email response to questions from Sudbury.Com.
"While this evaluation is underway, Public Health will continue to report COVID-19 case data Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (excluding statutory holidays), a detailed epidemiology summary and a detailed vaccination report on Tuesdays, and a weekly update on Thursdays. In addition, Public Health reports COVID-19 hospitalization data weekly in the detailed epidemiology summary and weekly update," said PHSD.
Public health also said that it would be evaluating the further collaboration with hospital partners and with provincial partners such as Public Health Ontario to better understand data (including hospitalization data) as an indicator of severity of illness, within the community.
Public Health also said it was advising the community "that the confirmed cases are an underestimate of the true number of people with COVID-19 in Sudbury and districts, given that access to PCR testing is increasingly limited, positive rapid antigen test results are not reported to Public Health, and the likelihood that people with asymptomatic infections may not seek testing."
