For Municipal Partners

Hastings Prince Edward Public Health
Online Bulletin for Municipal Partners

November 17, 2020

To ensure everyone has current information during this quickly evolving outbreak, Hastings Prince Edward Public Health will be providing regular COVID-19 updates.

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 93 cumulative lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 10 active, 78 resolved and 5 deceased. There were no new cases reported today.
  • 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
• Ontario is reporting 1,249 cases of COVID-19 and 12 deaths as nearly 26,500 tests have been completed. Locally, there are 569 new cases in Toronto, 256 in Peel and 94 in York Region.
   
• In Canada as of November 16, 2020, there are 302,192 cases of COVID-19 with 50,878 active cases. To date, there have been 11,027 COVID-19 related deaths and more than 10,402,744 individuals tested.

Summary of cases of COVID-19: Ontario, Jan. 15, 2020 to Nov. 16, 2020
 

Summary of Cases in Ontario Schools - Updated Nov 17, 2020.

Guidance/Directive Updates

• The COVID-19 management in schools guidance has been updated and is available on the government of Ontario’s website.
• The Child Care Re-Opening guidance has been updated and is available on the government of Ontario’s website.
• The Before and After School Programs Kindergarten – Grade 6 guidance has been updated and is available on the government of Ontario’s website.
• As part of the province’s comprehensive plan Keeping Ontarians Safe: Preparing for Future Waves of COVID-19, local networks of Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) expertise are being developed from across the health system which will work to enhance IPAC practices in community based, congregate living settings. Through a new, province-wide network, congregate living settings will be able to access IPAC expertise through local IPAC Hubs. More information on this initiative is available on the Ministry’s website.
• The Hospice Care guidance has been updated and is available on the Ministry’s website

Local Updates

• Belleville is mourning the loss of Belleville City Councillor and former member of Hastings Prince Edward Public Health Board of Health, Patricia Culhane, who died late Sunday, November 8 at Belleville General Hospital surrounded by her family after a sudden illness.
• City of Belleville - Mayor Mitch Panciuk updated residents on the COVID-19 situation in Belleville.
• The County of Prince Edward and The County Foundation have awarded funding to 33 community groups and organizations through the Municipal COVID-19 Recovery Grant program.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

• City of Belleville – Drive-By Celebration on Sunday, November 22 at the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre
• Town of Bancroft –A “Drive by Parade” at the North Hastings Community Centre (Arena) on December 4, 2020 from 4:30 to 7:30 pm
• Tweed – Tweed Fairgrounds on December 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm
• Frankford and Trenton Santa Claus Parades have been cancelled

Christmas Celebration Events

• Frankford Christmas Fantasy of Lights at Frankford Tourist Park starting Saturday, November 28
• Doug Whitney Christmas Fantasy of Lights at Fraser Park in Trenton starting on Sunday, November 29
• Madoc and Tweed annual Festival of Trees have been cancelled

Provincial

• The province is offering municipal property tax relief options by giving municipalities the flexibility to target property tax relief to small businesses and will match these reductions to provide small businesses with some $385M in municipal and provincial property tax relief.
• Additional public health measures have been implemented in Toronto, moving to the red-control level with stricter local restrictions. 
• The latest COVID-19 Modelling Update was released last week. Key findings included:
  • At a 5% growth rate, Ontario will hit about 6,000-7,000 new cases a day by the middle of December
  • Long-Term Care Home resident mortality is increasing each week
  • Outbreaks continue to account for 10% of cases of COVID-19
  • ICU occupancy will exceed the 150 bed threshold under any scenario within two weeks. It will exceed 400 beds within six weeks under the worst scenarios.
• The pandemic continues to impact Mental health and Mental Health Care.  An average of 34 overdose deaths per week occurred in the three and a half months before the pandemic. This increased by 38% to 46 deaths per week in the first three and half months of the pandemic.
• The Province has released updates to the recent COVID-19 Response Framework in response to the current data and trends, and has lowered the threshold for each of the five levels. Based on these new thresholds, the following public health unit regions will be moved to the levels listed below:
  • Red-Control: Hamilton Public Health Services; Halton Region Public Health; Toronto Public Health; Peel Regional Health Unit, and York Region Public Health
  • Orange-Restrict: Brant County Health Unit; Durham Region Health Department; Eastern Ontario Health Unit; Niagara Region Public Health; Ottawa Public Health, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health; and Region of Waterloo Public Health;
  • Yellow-Protect: Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit, Huron Perth Public Health; Middlesex-London Health Unit; Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, Public Health Sudbury & Districts; Southwestern Public Health and Windsor-Essex County Health Unit.
  • Green-Prevent: The remaining public health units (including HPEPH) are in this category.
• The Province has announced the COVID-19 Resilience Infrastructure Stream for Municipalities, and the provincial government is now accepting applications from municipalities for local infrastructure projects under the new Local Government sub-stream of the COVID-19 Resilience Infrastructure stream.
• Premier Ford announced the establishment of a centralized procurement agency to address the fragmented nature of Ontario's supply chain system and improve the sourcing of PPE and other critical supplies and equipment.
• Ontario has developed a comprehensive Prevention, Control and Outbreak Support Strategy for COVID-19 in Ontario's farm workers to ensure enhanced prevention and control on farm operations, farm worker safety and wellness, and maintain the sustainability and viability of the agri-food sector.

Federal

• The number of people experiencing severe illness continues to increase with an average of over 1,300 people with COVID-19 being treated in Canadian hospitals each day during the most recent 7-day period, including 250 of whom were being treated in intensive care units. During the same period, there were an average of 51 COVID-19-related deaths reported daily.
• $20M in federal funding will support veterans’ organizations through the Veterans Organizations Emergency Support Fund so they can continue to support veterans and their families.
• Public Services and Procurement Minister Anand highlighted the four stages of a national COVID-19 Vaccine Strategy: 
  • A Regulatory Process: Vaccines will need to be approved by Health Canada
  • Biomanufacturing: Canada has invested in domestic biomanufacturing capacity to complete, fill and finish the final steps in vaccine production which may be required for some vaccines
  • Distribution: The Public Health Agency of Canada will work with the provinces and territories to ensure a seamless distribution system is established.
  • Administration: Contracts have been negotiated to procure the supplies necessary for COVID-19 vaccination (e.g. up 90 million syringes; 100 million needles; 90 million alcohol swabs and 75 million bandages and gauze strips).
• The federal government has signed an agreement to purchase 7.6 million rapid antigen tests, which can provide results in as little as 15 minutes with a nasal swab. The Public Health Agency of Canada will deploy these tests to provinces and territories to support their COVID-19 testing regimes.
• The federal government has introduced the proposed Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020, which modernizes the framework for the protection of personal information in the private sector. This legislation takes a number of important steps to ensure that Canadians will be protected by a modern and responsive law and that innovative businesses will benefit from clear rules, even as technology continues to evolve.
• There is now clear evidence that people with pre-existing chronic conditions or compromised immune systems are at higher risk of dying of COVID-19, especially among those over the age of 80.
• Moderna Inc. reported trial data showing its experimental coronavirus vaccine was 94.5% effective at protecting people from COVID-19. The Government of Canada has already signed a contract with Moderna to secure up to 56 million doses of its vaccine candidate mRNA-1273. Moderna's vaccine shows similar efficacy as Pfizer's, and a longer shelf-life at refrigerated temperatures. Moderna also says that the preliminary data show that its vaccine is safe, but they still await longer-term safety results that will be available in late November. This vaccine is also among those Canada has pre-ordered.

Useful Links

• HPEPH COVID-19 General Information
• HPEPH COVID-19 Information for Health Care Providers
• How Ontario is responding to COVID-19
• Public Health Ontario Coronavirus Disease
• Canada Coronavirus disease

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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