KAWARTHA LAKES-The Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge (HKPR)District Health Unit says there are zero new cases of Coronavirus to report in the City of Kawartha Lakes today.
There are currently 36 active cases of the virus in Kawartha Lakes with six people admitted to hospital. Some of those are transfers from other hospitals who are experiencing a surge in cases.
Last Friday officials said in the past 14 days, HKPR District Health Unit has been notified of 282 confirmed cases and more than 500 high-risk contacts.
In addition, the health unit is staffing five mass immunization clinics, investigating eight community outbreaks, responding to 200 to 300 phone calls and emails daily, working with health care partners to set up programs to immunize homebound residents, and working with primary health care providers to implement vaccination of patients.
Due to the previous spike in cases the organization had to make some process changes to balance the work involved with new cases while continuing to offer mass immunization clinics in the communities
As a result, the following changes were made:
- High-risk contacts: anyone who is identified as a high-risk contact of a confirmed case will be emailed a letter outlining quarantine and testing requirements. Health Unit staff will continue to work closely with individuals who are confirmed cases. Additional information for high-risk contacts is available on the Health Unit’s website at www.hkpr.on.ca.
- Call centre: in order to address the hundreds of phone calls and emails coming into the Health Unit each day, staff have had to prioritize their response. Only urgent or emergency emails and contacts will be responded to quicky. Individuals who call or email to check on when they might be eligible to be vaccinated will not receive a response from the Health Unit. Individuals who have submitted a request for an individual code will also not receive a request from the Health Unit. All individual codes will come from the Ministry of Health.
As well as the work created by additional cases, the Health Unit is experiencing challenges due to decreases in local vaccine delivery while seeing an increase in the number of people now eligible for vaccination stated officials.
41,156 doses of vaccine have been administered throughout the HKPR region to date.