The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is looking for a new way to communicate the burden of COVID-19 on the community.
With testing capacity reduced as the health unit focuses more on getting more people vaccinated, the Acting Medical Officer of Health suggested case counts may not be the best indicator of how COVID-19 is impacting the community.
"We don't always have all the resources that we want to achieve our public health goals, so we have to set priorities," said Doctor Shanker Nesathurai. "I do agree that this is going to be a challenge in the transition period as case counts become not the substantive or primary metric of burden of illness."
How to best communicate that burden to a public that relies on the information to make daily decisions is something Nesathurai admitted needs consideration. He hopes the province provides guidance soon.
"With diminished testing, we're going to have less ability, or no ability to call outbreaks," said Nesathurai. "It doesn't mean that there aren't outbreaks in the community, but the ability to arbitrate them -- may be more challenging."
There are other metrics the health unit can use to communicate to the public including, deaths, hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care, and absenteeism from schools and workplaces.
On Wednesday, the health unit reported 993 new cases since last Thursday. The breakdown is 162 new infections on Friday, December 24, 122 on Christmas Day, 107 on Boxing Day, 262 this past Monday, 153 on Tuesday, and 187 on Wednesday morning.
There are 1,125 active cases in the region and 17 people in the hospital.
Asked if we are now moving into the endemic stage of the pandemic, Nesathurai opined it is unlikely we'll irradicate COVID-19 in the short term.
"I do think we are likely in the public health world to transition to a more endemic management of COVID from an epidemic management of COVID," he said. "I do think we are probably at that transition point or beginning that transition point."
The shift in priorities at the health unit is bearing fruit at the region's mass vaccination clinic. So far, 113,825 residents in Windsor-Essex have had their booster shot.
CEO Nicole Dupuis said since last Thursday, the clinic at Devonshire Mall has had around 3,000 people getting their vaccination each day.
"They continue to have first and second doses come in," she said.
That does not include those who get their shot at their primary caregiver or a participating pharmacy. More will be vaccinated when the two new clinics, at Nature Fresh Farms Recreation Centre in Leamington and the Dr. Y Emara Centre for Healthy Aging and Mobility at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, open on January 5.
Booking appointments for those two clinics opened Wednesday at 8 a.m.
