As COVID-19 cases surge in the Porcupine Health Unit region, the information being revealed about local cases has changed.
At the start of the pandemic, when cases were announced the health unit disclosed the location, gender, age range, exposure and status of a case (whether they were in self-isolation, hospitalized, deceased or recovered), as well as when the person was tested.
Today, the health unit is still disclosing cases on its website, although the details have changed to only reporting the exposure and location. The cases are no longer updated to include the status of the case.
"Beginning today, the status column on our case table has been removed. This change has been made to further protect the privacy of the individuals who are confirmed positive cases of COVID-19," said the health unit in a May 5 update.
Because the health unit has a vast region that stretches from Timmins to Hearst and up the James Bay and Hudson Bay coast, the change means that when, like today, there are 175 active cases, it's not known where those cases are. Although, the health unit has started to include a breakdown of location in a Facebook post this week.
With the nature of the public information being release by the health unit constantly changing throughout the past 18 months, it got us thinking — what information do people want to see about the local cases?
We thought this could be a great opportunity to use our new polling system. Without getting too technical, our new polls allow TimminsToday (and other sites in the Village Media family) to better capture relevant data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
So, using our improved polling system, which allows us to create polls on the local level that are more relevant and accurate in their scope and results than in the past, we posed the question: What details on local COVID-19 cases do you want to know?
TimminsToday's poll showed that 270 voters want to know everything about the case.
The breakdown was as follows:
- 55 per cent want to know everything, including age, gender, location, exposure to the virus and status of the case
- 17 per cent want to know the location, exposure and status of the case
- 11 per cent want to know the location and exposure
- 9 per cent want to know the age, location and exposure
- 5 per cent don't think local cases should be reported
- 4 per cent want an option not listed
- 3 per cent want new cases to be announced without details
A total of 491 votes were cast.
This poll had a 8.04 per cent margin of error, 19 times out of 20.
Vote in our latest poll — Do you agree with the user fee to access the Deloro Landfill and Tisdale Transfer Station? — here.
