Health Minister Patty Hajdu. Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com/FILE)
THUNDER BAY – Health Minister Patty Hajdu says being able to watch the first COVID-19 vaccines being administered felt like being part of history.
However, she cautioned the general public to be patient.
While several provinces, including Ontario, have begun delivering vaccines to front-line workers and the country’s most vulnerable people, it will be some time before there are enough doses of either the Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna vaccines to inoculate larger swaths of the population.
“It’s going to take some time before everyone in Canada has an opportunity to be vaccinated and everyone around the world has an opportunity to be vaccinated,” Hajdu said on Tuesday, speaking with Thunder Bay Television.
Nine new COVID-19 cases in Thunder Bay District
The Thunder Bay District Health Unit announced the latest positive tests on Tuesday, which brings the active case count to 115.
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Posted: Dec 15, 2020 11:19 AM ET | Last Updated: December 15, 2020
The Thunder Bay District Health Unit reported nine new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday.(Erik White/CBC)
Nine new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the Thunder Bay District.
The Thunder Bay District Health Unit announced the latest positive tests on Tuesday, which brings the active case count to 115.
Eight of the new cases are located in Thunder Bay and the surrounding area, with the other in a district community. Six are close contacts of existing cases, one had no known exposure to the virus and the other two have not been determined.
The COVID-19 cases counts in the region keep piling up.
Today the Thunder Bay District Health Unit is reporting eight new cases of the coronavirus.
All the people affected are self-isolating.
It brings the active case count in the district to 115.
Since the pandemic began in March there have been 448 COVID-19 cases reported.
The health unit has reported cases for 40 consecutive days.
Meantime there has been another single-day record of COVID-19 cases in the province.
The latest numbers show over 2,275 cases that come with an important caveat.
Provincial officials say changes to how Public Health Ontario collects and analyzes cases mean that the figure includes two and a half extra hours of data from several health units, artificially inflating the total number… by how much is not clear.
KENORA, Ont. Although health officials advise against all non-essential travel outside Northwestern Ontario because of the elevated incidence of COVID-19 across Canada, they are also providing guidance for those who do travel.
The Northwestern Health Unit on Tuesday issued new recommendations which it said align with the Ministry of Health s recommendations.
The recommendations include:
Travel within Ontario
Using the provincial COVID-19 response framework as a guide, people in higher transmission areas should avoid travel to lower transmission areas (e.g., from Red to Orange, from Yellow to Green) except for essential reasons
Avoid all non-essential travel to areas that have higher levels of COVID-19 (Orange, Red and Grey levels)
A COVID-19 vaccine could be rolled out as soon as next week. Getty Images
THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre will distribute Pfizer-BioNTech s COVID-19 vaccine when it arrives in Thunder Bay.
The hospital on Tuesday announced the collaboration.
Making the vaccine available to the people of our community is our focus and priority,” said Dr. Rhonda Crocker Ellacott, hospital president and CEO.
“Priority populations to receive the vaccine have been announced by the province and the Hospital will follow provincial direction in the distribution and implementation plan.“
Crocker-Ellacott said they’re still working on a timeline. Ontario’s first vaccinations were given on Monday in southern Ontario.