What’s the source? COVID sources pinned down in about 70% of cases, says SMDHU - CollingwoodToday.ca

Charles Gardner, medical officer of health with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, a definitive source of transmission has been determined in a little more than 70 per cent of local COVID-19 cases as of Oct.

“About 29 per cent of our cases we consider to be community-acquired, which means we don’t know exactly how they acquired their infection,” said Gardner.

There are four main sources of transmission listed on the health unit website when they report new COVID-19 cases: close contact, community-acquired, institutional outbreak or workplace outbreak.

When the health unit refers to a close contact, this means transmission has happened by coming in contact with a known case.

When a case is listed on the health unit site as community-acquired, typically that means the health unit does not know how the transmission took place.

The health unit will also report if there is an outbreak in a specific institutional or workplace setting.

According to a report by CBC News, Canada’s COVID-19 Alert App has been downloaded to nearly 4.7 million phones since its launch in July. Figures provided by the Ontario government show COVID Alert users have reported 1,354 cases through the app since its launch.

Public Health Ontario has reported more than 25,000 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 since July.