For Municipal Partners

Hastings Prince Edward Public Health
Online Bulletin for Municipal Partners

November 3, 2020 - UPDATED

IMPORTANT - Please disregard the previous version of today's bulletin, which contained some errors due to a technical issue.

For more information please review our website or call 613-966-5500 or 1-800-267-2803.

Updates

Epidemiological

• Hastings and Prince Edward Counties have 81 cumulative lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19. There were no new cases reported today for a total of 6 active cases, with 70 having recovered and 5 deceased. More than 46,700 tests have been completed to date.
  • There are no local long-term care facilities experiencing COVID-19 outbreak; additional outbreak details can be found online.
  • More information is available on our website hpePublicHealth.ca
• In Canada, there are 240,263 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 30,003 active cases. To date, there have been 10,208 COVID-19 related deaths and more than 9,597,564 individuals tested.

Summary of cases of COVID-19: Ontario, Jan. 15, 2020 to Nov. 2, 2020

Summary of Cases in Ontario Schools - Updated Nov 2, 2020.

HPEPH

• Today, HPEPH issued a media release to encourage individuals having unprotected sex to seek testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and to raise awareness of higher than usual levels of STIs in the region.
• HPEPH is working with local schools to encourage ongoing awareness of the importance of physical distancing for students, staff and caregivers.
• All close (high risk) contacts of positive cases will be contacted directly by public health. Other (low risk) contacts are advised to self-monitor for 14 days and seek testing if they develop symptoms.

Local

• Remembrance Day Commemorations will be held in alternate ways or through smaller services due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The Royal Canadian Legion will offer a Facebook Live presentation of the National Remembrance Day ceremony.
• Hastings County has set aside funding to support the establishment of warming centres in Bancroft and Belleville.
• The Trent Port Marina has been recognized by Blue Flag Canada for excellent management, despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In the House of Commons, MP Neil Ellis recognized and thanked the residents of the Bay of Quinte, essential and frontline workers for doing their part of keep our community safe.

Provincial

• Today, the Province released a COVID-19 Response Framework to help keep the province safe and open. The complete framework is available online and includes:
  • Preventative measures to help avoid broad closures and flexibility to allow safety measures to be added or removed incrementally
  • Categories for public health unit regions (Green/Prevent, Yellow/Protect, Orange/Restrict, Red/Control and Lockdown. Each level outlines the type of health and safety measures for businesses and organizations, with specific requirements for sectors, institutions, and other settings.
  • Classifications for the abovementioned framework will be finalized on Friday November 6 and come into effect on Saturday November 7, 2020.
• The Ontario government is making $300 million available to businesses required to close or significantly restrict services in areas subject to modified Stage 2 public health restrictions.
   
• Premier Doug Ford will be meeting next week with provincial health officials to review a tiered plan to ease modified Phase 2 restrictions in a way that safely allows businesses in affected regions to start opening back up after the 28-day period is over.
   
• The province has released a report providing an overview of the 47 emergency orders that were put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
   
• Premier Ford announced the government is increasing the hours of direct care for each long-term care resident to an average of four hours per day.
   
• The province is investing up to $5M to launch the Community Paramedicine for Long-Term Care program in five communities across the province.
   
• The Ontario government is providing up to $1.05B in combined federal-provincial funding through the new COVID-19 Resilience infrastructure stream to build or renovate health and safety related projects in long-term care, education and municipalities. Categories for eligible projects include: Community, recreation, health and education renovations, COVID-19 response infrastructure, active transportation; and disaster mitigation, adaptation, or remediation.

• The Ontario government is providing municipalities and Indigenous community partners with over $241M to help more than 110,000 Ontarians affected by COVID-19, including those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
• To help reduce surgical backlogs and improve access to care during COVID-19, Premier Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott announced the government is providing $116.5M to create up to 766 more beds at 32 hospitals and alternate health facilities across the province.

Federal

• The federal government has extended the Mandatory Isolation Order and temporary travel restrictions for all non-US travellers, unless their travel is for non-discretionary reasons, to November 30, 2020. The government has also made some practical adjustments to provisions allowing limited Canada-U.S. cross-border travel, in a few specific circumstances.

• The Mandatory Isolation Support for Temporary Foreign Workers Program will be extended until November 30, 2020. Under the Program, the federal government will provide a maximum support of $1,500 for each temporary foreign worker, to employers who are required to isolate workers under the Quarantine Act.
• Canada’s Chief Medical Officers of Health and the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada have issued a statement to remind Canadians that core preventative health measures to protect ourselves against COVID-19 are the same across the country. While some measures will differ across the country, It is important for all Canadians, organizations and communities to continue to follow the advice of local public health while keeping up personal public health practices.
   
• Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, shared the latest modelling data on the pandemic.
  • Daily case counts of COVID-19 continue to increase across the country
  • Cases in Ontario and Quebec continue to significantly impact the national curve accounting for over 75% of all cases reported since the beginning of the pandemic
  • Incidence of COVID-19 is increasing across all age groups but remains highest among those under 40 years of age
  • Health inequities are shaping the distribution of the pandemic in Canada
  • More outbreaks are occurring, but they are smaller in size
  • Long-range forecasts indicate that a stronger response is needed now to slow the spread of COVID-19
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced over $200M in new funding to provide support to Indigenous peoples and communities. The funding is intended to support safe reopening of childcare facilities, establishment of reserve community infrastructure, and immediate support to indigenous post-secondary institutions.
   
• Dr. Tam has released the 2020 Report from the Chief Public Health Officer, which calls for a structural change to address the impact of inequity for pandemic preparedness, response and recovery.

We want to ensure this bulletin is as useful as possible. Please send your questions, comments and suggestions to etubbs@hpeph.ca

Contact Information: 

To give us your comments: etubbs@hpeph.ca

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