Key takeaways:
- Tara Moriarty counts over 1,400 fresh COVID-19 patients per day in N.L.
- Tara Moriarty is a teacher and contagious diseases researcher at the University of Toronto.
- She’s the co-founder of COVID-19 Resources Canada too.
According to data from a contagious diseases researcher at the University of Toronto, the chance of an incoming wave of COVID-19 patients and extreme health effects is higher in Newfoundland and Labrador than anywhere in Canada.
Tara Moriarty, the co-founder of COVID-19 Resources Canada, a grassroots association to boost Canada’s COVID-19 response, made the COVID-19 Hazard Index. The index collects data in four main categories: vaccine safety, current caseloads, spread, the effect on the healthcare system, and mortality.
Newfoundland and Labrador now have the highest hazard index in Canada as of July 9, at 2.98 out of five.
“Newfoundland and Labrador had come down, was improving for some weeks till the most recent hazard index update,” Moriarty told CBC News Monday.
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“What’s occurring in Newfoundland and Labrador now is that the test positivity rate is rising fast, which may be linked to a BA.5 wave in the region like in many other Canadian provinces.”
Other data from the group estimates the region is presently seeing approximately 1,400 first-time illnesses per day, Moriarty said, which will probably increase hospitalizations, patient admissions into intensive care, and extinction in the coming weeks.
“That doesn’t have reinfections, and it’s a little bit more difficult to calculate what percentage of people are being reinfected with BA.5,” she told. “But say we estimate there’s an extra at least 30 percent on top of 1,400; that might reflect the real numbers.”
Data from Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Health shows case numbers have fallen in recent weeks, but that number doesn’t represent the whole image due to the region restricting who can help with a COVID-19 PCR test.
Source – CBC News
