Today, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) reported three new COVID-19 cases in Huntsville, for a total of 26 this month—the most in a single month since the pandemic began.
The newest cases are a male aged 65-74 who is a close contact of a confirmed case, as well as a female aged 18-34 and a male aged 45-64, whose cases are both under investigation.
Of Huntsville’s 26 cases this month, 11 are the result of close contact with another case, six were community-acquired, three are outbreak-related, the origin of four is undetermined (the most likely acquisition of illness is not clear and investigation is complete), and two are under investigation. Huntsville’s overall case count to date is 116, with 18 currently active. Lake of Bays has had 19 cases to date with six currently active. None of the Huntsville Lake of Bays cases are in hospital.
Elsewhere in Muskoka, the health unit is reporting that one person in Gravenhurst has died from COVID-19. There are also two new cases reported for Bracebridge and one for Gravenhurst.
The health unit is also reporting that one case in Muskoka has been confirmed as the P.1 (Brazilian) variant. SMDHU does not reveal in which community variant cases reside.
As of April 26, within Muskoka there have been 100 cases reported as the UK B.1.1.7 variant (from March 26, 2021 forward, these cases include those confirmed via whole genome sequencing as well as presumed B.1.1.7 cases based on PCR testing for select mutations of interest), one case that has been confirmed as the Brazilian P.1 variant, and an additional 14 that have screened positive for a variant of concern.
There have been a total of 361 cases reported in Muskoka to date (67 of them currently active, one of which is in hospital) and 9,733 in Simcoe County (1,753 active). A total of 221 people in Simcoe Muskoka have died from COVID-19, four of them in Muskoka. (For a full list of Huntsville and Lake of Bays cases to date, and other COVID-19 updates for the area, visit our COVID-19 page.)
For more COVID-19 information from the health unit, visit simcoemuskokahealth.org.
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Brenda Begg says
Why, pray tell, can’t we know which community has the the Brazilian P.1 variant case?
Brian Tapley says
I’m with Brenda, why bother to tell us one case exists if you don’t tell us where?
It is a bit like shopping in many stores today.. Muskoka Auto, Ideal, Wollsely and the like. They have shelf after shelf of “stuff” and not a price posted anywhere. It drives one to shop either online where, although some details are sketchy, they at least post a price or it simply drives one away to some place that does post a price.
So back to the Health folks we get that tantalizing report that there is a case of the Brazilian variant “somewhere” but here is another question.
How are the cases acquired? For example, they list several ways….
Close contact…. I think I understand this one.
Community acquired… I suppose this means you got it locally, went outside and bang! the virus ambushed you.
Outbreak related… now I’m getting a bit confused. Are not all cases everywhere related to the “outbreak” as in the pandemic in general? Do we have some other definition of outbreak that has not been made clear to us all?
4 cases are unknown…. I can sort of imagine an unknown explanation as lord knows there are many possibilities here and people’s memories are imperfect but then they go on to say the investigation is “complete”. Does this just mean they gave up without an answer? I’d think the file would be open on this until a cause was found.
And people talk about ‘transparency’
The last thing to note is that a lot of city owner cottages seem to be occupied for two to four days a week. Where the person went the rest of that week is a mystery but it is more than likely “back to the city” would be the answer. I thought the whole idea of flattening the curve as to avoid spread and to do this was to avoid travel like this from a city hot spot to the surrounding countryside. This does not seem to apply to those privileged to own two or more homes. Air B&B and CRBO seem not to have noticed the pandemic in general and this too seems a bit strange.
Oh well we are all trying our best I suppose, at least I hope!