A Northern Ontario Health Unit Won’t Be Reopening With Everyone Else On Friday
The region is getting way more cases per 100,000 people than Peel and Toronto.
While the rest of the province enters step one of Ontario's incremental reopening plan on Friday, June 11, one northeastern health unit is holding back. With the highest number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the province right now, the Porcupine Health Unit (PHU) has found itself in a prickly situation.
PHU has its main office in Timmins and covers Cochrane, Hearst, Hornepayne, Iroquois Falls, Kapuskasing, Matheson, Moosonee, and Smooth Rock Falls. According to Ontario's COVID-19 tracking data, the health unit has 29.69 cases per 100,000 people, much higher than Toronto and Peel which have 4.17 and 6.88, respectively.
"I think the numbers are really clear, there is no way that we can reopen this week, or within a week," said Dr. Lianne Catton, PHU's Medical Health Officer of Health in a Monday press conference, via Timmins Today.
"I know that's going to be very challenging and that the emotions are going to get even higher, the frustrations are going to be higher."
Timmins recorded its first case of the Delta variant, believed to be more contagious, on June 4. "With the PHU seeing ongoing record numbers of cases and outbreaks, the presence of another variant which spreads even more easily than the B.1.1.7 variant is extremely worrisome," said Dr. Catton in the June 4 announcement.
Dr. Catton has the ability to invoke a Section 22 order to keep the region closed, which she said is an action that will "likely be taken", reports the Toronto Star.