Beginning February 23, Lambton Public Health (LPH) is changing the way it reports COVID-19 cases across the community.
Cases will now be reported online every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday due to publicly funded PCR testing being limited to those in contact with high-risk settings.
Because of this, the number of COVID cases locally is being underestimated.
Additional changes to the public COVID-19 Surveillance Report on LPH’s website will include:
• Discontinued reporting of cases by age, sex, geography, and source of acquisition, as newly reported cases only represent a small segment of the population.
• Discontinued reporting of whether cases are active or resolved, as this no longer reflects the true number of active and resolved cases in the community. These indicators will be replaced with: the number of new cases since LPH’s last report, and the average number of cases per day over the last seven days.
• Discontinued reporting of cases per 100,000, as case rates no longer reflect the rate among the whole population.
• Discontinued reporting of variant of concern lineage, as Omicron is the dominant variant and only a small number of PCR tests will be screened for Omicron.
• Outbreak reporting will be limited to active outbreaks in congregate living settings.
• Addition of the number of fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccine given to Lambton County residents.
• Addition of a glossary that defines key terms used in the report.
LPH said other public health units have recently made similar changes to their COVID-19 case reporting in response to the new testing eligibility criteria.
Due to the statutory holiday on Monday, February 21, no surveillance report will be posted on that day but will be updated the following day.
Those still wishing to book a COVID vaccine can visit www.getthevaccine.ca.
