COVID in decline but virus season brings mask mandates back to Durham hospitals

‘Tis the virus season, prompting Lakeridge Health to bring back masking requirements in all patient-and public-facing areas but the COVID-19 numbers continue to decline.

In some cases those numbers dropped dramatically, though the reporting period was just two days (October 8-10) instead of the customary seven.

New cases in Durham Region dropped from 118 to just 23. If that total was extrapolated over seven days it would become 80, which is still a substantial drop from 118.

The weekly incidence rate (per 100,000 population) fell to 3.1 from 16.1 – another positive sign – while hospital cases went down slightly, with 28 patients testing positive versus 30 the previous reporting period.

The rest of the numbers were consistent with the previous week, with the per cent positivity remaining at 13.9 per cent, the number of outbreaks at hospitals, retirement centres and long term care homes staying at six (including two at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences) and the all important death rate holding at zero.