{"id":32734,"date":"2023-03-09T19:04:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T00:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32734"},"modified":"2023-03-09T19:04:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T00:04:15","slug":"public-health-suspends-data-reporting-as-third-anniversary-of-covid-19-approaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/public-health-suspends-data-reporting-as-third-anniversary-of-covid-19-approaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Health suspends data reporting as third anniversary of COVID-19 approaches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the third anniversary approaches of the World Health Organization\u2019s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, York Region Public Health has announced that, as of this month, they will cease regular updates on the virus, including updating their COVID-19 dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince March 2020, the Region has provided regular updates to the media and the public in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; these updates provided important information about the status of COVID-19 cases in York Region and have shared details on COVID-19-related fatalities in our community, vaccination status, outbreaks and hospitalization,\u201d said Patrick Casey, Director of Corporate Communications for the Region of York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs COVID-19 cases continue to trend downward and restrictions in our community have been lifted, York Region will cease regular COVID-19 updates to media partners and on social media channels, effective March 2023. Public Health will focus on managing and reporting COVID-19 data and information in alignment with other reportable infectious diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since it was first launched in March of 2020, York Region Public Health\u2019s COVID-19 dashboard was a way for members of the public to track not only the number of cases that were circulating in the community, how many individuals were hospitalized, where they were exposed to the virus and, sadly, how many community members died with the illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as reporting changed across the Province, and rules were relaxed, the numbers on the dashboard reflected less and less the current reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last dashboard update on February 28, the Region reported 79 total confirmed deaths of Aurora residents since the start of the pandemic, with 90.7 per cent of residents aged 5+ having received two or more doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe but we are approaching the three-year anniversary of the World Health Organizations\u2019 declaration of the COVID-19 global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Fortunately and finally it does seem that we are turning a corner,\u201d said Dr. Barry Pakes, York Region\u2019s Medical Officer of Health, last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile the impact of COVID-19 is very much with us, and impacting acute care, our physical and mental health, and our ability to recover, things are much closer to normal than they have ever been. Our hospitalization numbers are decreasing, our wastewater burden is decreasing, and our outbreaks in facilities are lower than they have been in many years. Previously to get to these low levels of COVID-19\u2019s impact, we needed severe pandemic control measures, but this time we\u2019ve achieved this with overwhelming population immunity from vaccination and several waves of very transmissible variants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do we still need to do? People are still dying of COVID-19 unnecessarily and we still need to protect the most vulnerable among us from illness, as we would with any other infection. It is still important to take appropriate precautions like staying home when symptomatic, wearing a mask around vulnerable individuals and crowded spaces, and washing your hands frequently. This will minimize the risk of COVID-19 in the most vulnerable and help keep us in a good place. COVID-19 wise and relating to other infections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201csuccess of each and every person\u2019s good health,\u201d he said, remains in a \u201cvery large part\u201d due to vaccination, particularly the bivalent vaccine, which protects from severe illness and hospitalization. There has been \u201cexcellent uptake\u201d with this booster amongst the over-70 population, but younger demographics are \u201cless protected than they need to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Encouraged all residents who have not yet had a booster do so, and getting the shot now will carry protections into the fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attention is also shifting back to other vaccines, particularly those that were more difficult to administer at the height of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the last three years, health care public health and our lives have been immeasurably disrupted,\u201d said Dr. Pakes. \u201cThese actions saved lives \u2013 tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of lives across Canada \u2013 but one of the consequences of these measures was they moved our focus away from other preventive health actions and made us vulnerable to other illnesses. One of the very important impacts of the pandemic was the disruption of our usual vaccination efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs you will know, there have been measles cases now detected in Ontario and many cases globally. Measles is a very, very infectious virus that can kill and disable children, and it is very vaccine-preventable. It was eliminated from Canada only 25 years ago and we can\u2019t allow it to return. The last thing we need now are more outbreaks and illnesses, so what we each need to do now is ensure everyone is protected through our regular vaccine schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the third anniversary approaches of the World Health Organization\u2019s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, York Region Public Health has announced that, as of this month, they will cease regular updates on the virus, including updating their COVID-19 dashboard. \u201cSince March 2020, the Region has provided regular updates to the media and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8vY","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 12:29:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}