Public Health Sudbury and Districts (PHSD) has reported that there are 25 new cases of COVID-19 in the area for Wednesday, March 17.
PHSD also said there are now 242 active cases being actively monitored, a decrease of three from Tuesday.
This means that since the health unit began tracking COVID-19 cases one year ago, there have now been 1,059 total COVID-19 cases confirmed locally.
PHSD also said 817 of those cases have been resolved locally.
With respect to where the new cases might have occurred, the PHSD daily update page reported that all 25 cases were found to have occurred within the Greater Sudbury Area.
With respect to possible causes of the new cases, PHSD reported 19 cases as outbreak associated. PHSD has not yet responded to a Sudbury.com inquiry about an outbreak at an industrial setting in Sudbury.
Eighteen new cases were reported as close contact of a confirmed case. Nineteen new cases were listed as under investigation.
Seven 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 368 total cases (Ten new cases).
Next highest number was 258 cases for the 19 and under age group (Two new cases).
The next highest group number was 238 cases for the 40 to 59 age group (Eight new cases).
Seniors in the 60 to 79 age group had only 125 cases total (four new cases), and people aged 80 and over were the lowest category with 66 cases (one new case) and four cases where the age was not specified (no increase).
VARIANTS:
PHSD is also reporting there are still only three cases of "confirmed" variants of the COVID-19 virus.
This hasn't changed in over a week. There are however, 197 cases that are "screened positive" for variants of concern (No increase).
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 OUTBREAKS
At Sudbury's Health Sciences North, the number of COVID-19 cases is rising. As reported at noon today, Wednesday March 17, there are 21 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the hospital. According to the HSN website, this included five COVID patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
There are 33 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 today, the Ontario government daily website reported there were 1508 new confirmed COVID-19 cases across the province. Also today, the province reported 14 new deaths had occurred in the previous 24 hours.