By Cecilia Nasmith

Declining COVID-19 numbers have resulted in the weekly COVID-19 media scrums offered by the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit to go to a monthly basis – which Medical Officer of Health Dr. Natalie Bocking offered this week.

The sessions were weekly for much of the past 18 months, going to every other week when COVID activity lessened, returning to weekly when viral activity accelerated, and now a monthly offering.

“We certainly have had a decrease in COVID-19 activity over the last couple of weeks. I would say, really, we are on the tail end of the sixth wave of COVID-19 since the pandemic started – or the second wave of Omicron,” Dr. Bocking said.

They currently receive about 10 to 20 new lab-confirmed cases daily, “a decrease from around 60 – or more than 100, which we were receiving at the peak of the wave.”

The health unit is currently overseeing three outbreaks in high-risk settings, and its case positivity rate is down to about 7.7%.

“Again, at its peak, it was around 23%,” she said, adding that the current provincial test positivity rate is 8% to 9%.

“So certainly it's not down to zero, but it's at a level we haven't seen since prior to the introduction of the Omicron variant.”

The HKPR region has seen three new hospital admissions over the past 14 days, and the viral indicators from waste-water surveillance in Lindsay and Cobourg are down – particularly in Lindsay, where it's almost at pre-Omicron levels.

“Because Omicron is so infectious, it's not going to disappear completely. We're likely to see an on-going trickle of cases and little bumps in our waste-water surveillance data,” she warned. But barring new variants or other unforeseen changes, she hopes for no significant increases or challenges until fall.

Just as the media scrums come less often, Dr. Bocking said the updating of the COVID-19 dashboard on their website – which was once updated every weekday – will go to a weekly update every Wednesday. This may change in the event of any new developments.

Since Jan. 1, across two waves of Omicron, the region has seen 77 outbreaks, 140 hospital admissions, 27 ICU admissions and 45 deaths attributed to the virus.

“Unfortunately, we have had 108 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic started,” she added.

“Vaccinations continue to be one of the most important tools we have in our toolbox.”

Guidance on who is eligible for which booster shot is on the HKPR website and the provincial website, and Dr, Bocking hopes the most vulnerable – people with stem-cell transplants, organ transplants, people undergoing chemotherapy – will remain up to date on these shots.

“Just a reminder to individuals who are at highest risk of the most severe illness, vaccines do provide very good protection against severe illness, hospitalization, ICU admissions and death from COVID-19. They're not 100%, but they're highly effective.”

This is true even if you've had COVID-19, since the naturally occurring immunity after these infections does not seem to be as durable or as strong as that conferred by vaccination.

If you've had COVID-19, the current guidance is to wait five months before your next shot – though, depending on your risk level, you may wish to discuss the possibility of an earlier shot with your doctor.

Vaccinations continue to be available at pharmacies, through some health-care providers and at health-unit-led clinics – which have gone to a walk-in format for any age and any shot.

Well, almost any age. Although the Food and Drug Administration in the US has approved the vaccine for children under the age of five, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization in Canada is still reviewing the matter.

Public-health messaging continues to urge caution – not only for one's own sake but for the sake of members of the community who are at special risk.

Stay home if you are ill or if you have symptoms. If you take a rapid-antigen test that says negative, take another one in a day or two – if it says negative, you're probably negative.

“Although we have much less COVID activity than we did a couple of weeks ago, I think it is prudent to continue to wear masks in indoor settings for crowded events,” Dr. Bocking urged.

“We still have COVID infection in the community, and it makes sense to continue to wear masks in these settings.”

With no media scrum set until early July, she said, “I'm looking forward to a couple of months with much less COVID activity before we look to the fall, when I anticipate we will see an increase in activity again.”