CORNWALL, Ontario – Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, Medical Officer of Health for the Eastern Ontario Health Unit (EOHU) shared some positive news in his bi-weekly media conference call on Monday, April 26.
The EOHU is starting to see the curve of new COVID-19 cases trending downwards after peaking at around Easter.
The region currently sits at a seven-day rolling average of 85.1 new COVID-19 cases, down from a peak of 154.1 on the week of April 15.
“I was pleasantly surprise,” Dr. Roumeliotis said. “I think this is the manifestation of the stay-at-home orders and other measures.”
Dr. Roumeliotis encouraged the public to continue to abide by the stay-at-home order and other lockdown measures to see the downward trend continue
“I say ‘only’ but we ‘only’ had 52 new cases from this past weekend,” he said.
The province wide stay-at-home order and lockdown is planned to continue until May 25. If the lockdown were to end today, the EOHU would still be in a lockdown based on its seven-day rolling average, but Dr. Roumeliotis was hopeful that by May 25 some restrictions may be able to be lifted.
Dr. Roumeliotis also took the time to clarify some issues surrounding the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, specifically regarding pharmacies. Dr. Roumeliotis clarified that the EOHU had no say in which pharmacies were permitted to distribute the vaccine, or how many doses they receive. Two pharmacies in Cornwall out of a potential 16 have been authorized to distribute the vaccine, but quickly ran out of doses.
Dr. Roumeliotis did state however that overall, the EOHU region was receiving the same per-capita amount of vaccine as other health unit regions.
As of Monday, April 26, there are 357 active COVID-19 cases in the region. There are 117 active cases in Cornwall, 18 in the northern portion of Akwesasne, 14 in South Glengarry, 23 in South Stormont, two in South Dundas, eight in North Dundas, nine in North Stormont, 11 in North Glengarry, zero in East Hawkesbury, 13 in Hawkesbury, 13 in Champlain, 13 in The Nation, 15 in Casselman, 19 in Russell, 62 in Clarence-Rockland, and 22 in Alfred and Plantagenet.
There are currently 34 individuals in the EOHU region who are hospitalized with COVID-19 with six in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). There have been 100 deaths due to COVID-19 in the region since March of 2020.
As of Monday, there have been 53,794 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in the region.
