The local Medical Officer of Health has an eye on a few things, including the COVID-19 situation at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
With 6 of 26 patients in the Intensive Care Unit heading into Monday, Dr. Janet DeMille stresses there are ongoing conversations on the day to day changes.
“Their capacity is limited at the best of times for various reasons,” “(We recognize) that it’s easy to tip them into a very challenging situation. There are a number of measures to very closely monitor that as well as to mitigate impacts in those sectors.”
The Health Sciences Centre is dealing with a number of outbreaks, including in the Adult Mental Heath Unit which was declared on January 13th.
Meanwhile Acadia News asked Dr. DeMille whether Ontario will see the easing of restrictions come Thursday, January 27th.
She said while she doesn’t have intimate knowledge of the conversations at Queen’s Park, she wouldn’t be surprised if they waited a little longer to with the current measures.
“The concern with Omicron is it’s ability to spread very fast and impact a lot of people, even if it’s a small percentage of individuals that require hospitalization the sheer numbers of people infected could really overwhelm the health care system,” DeMille noted.
As of January 8th, The Thunder Bay District Health Unit has confirmed eight cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 with another 61 presumed cases.
The province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore has said the defining factor for an end to the latest restrictions will be hospitalization rates.
