The Porcupine Health Unit is reporting no new COVID-19 cases and one resolved case today.
There have been 64 positive tests in the health unit's region. Of those, 49 are resolved and five people have died. The health unit is following 10 known active cases.
To date, the health unit is aware of 2,896 tests being done locally, which is an increase of 167 from the last report. There are 339 tests under investigation.
The regular testing tally doesn't include those being done as part of the mandated surveillance at long-term care homes.
According to the health unit, 1,377 tests have been done at eight of the 10 long-term care homes in the region. That includes 610 residents and 767 employees. In addition to that, 37 employees at five of the six emergency child care centres have been tested.
Through that testing, two outbreaks — at the Golden Manor in Timmins and South Centennial Manor in Iroquois Falls — have been declared this week.
The positive test at the Golden Manor was in a resident who had no symptoms. All other tests from the facility came back negative.
According to a news release from the City of Timmins, the resident has been tested twice since, with both of those tests being negative. The outbreak is still in effect at the facility. While one resolved case was reported today, it is not the case at the Golden Manor.
"This has left us completely perplexed," said Golden Manor administrator Carol Halt in a news release.
"With genuine concern and care for the resident and the mental well-being of their family and for our other residents, families and staff, we knew the only thing we could do was to conduct a third test on the resident, which returned a second consecutive negative result. We are continuing the original outbreak order, because our home, technically, is still considered to be in outbreak until we receive notification otherwise from the Porcupine Health Unit. But for our own understanding and peace of mind, we felt it necessary to seek further confirmation of the possibility of the virus within the home."
For the local cases, 40 have been in Timmins. Of those, 28 cases are resolved and four people have died. There have been 23 cases in the area of Cochrane, Matheson, Iroquois Falls, and Smooth Rock Falls. Of those, 20 are resolved and one person has died. There has been one case in the area of Kapuskasing, Opasatika, Val Rita-Harty, Moonbeam, and Fauquier-Strickland and it is resolved.
There are COVID-19 Assessment centres in Timmins, Cochrane, Iroquois Falls, Kapuskasing, Smooth Rock Falls, Hearst and Hornepayne. They are by appointment only and you must be referred by your primary healthcare provider or the health unit.
The PHU COVID-19 hotline is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. It can be reached at 705-267-1181 or 1-800-461-1818.
The health unit is doing expanded testing on people with milder symptoms for a limited time.
The expanded list of symptoms includes cough, fever, and difficulty breathing as well as sore throat/hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing, loss of smell or taste, fatigue, muscle aches, runny nose, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and nausea or vomiting.
