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Simcoe Muskoka health unit turns attention to young adults

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BARRIE, ONT. -

With testing numbers down, the health team at Orillia’s COVID-19 assessment centre is getting ready to move back to the Kiwanis Building at Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital.

“With the lower numbers in our region, we were very excited to give back this space to the city of Orillia and utilize our original testing site back at the hospital,” said Melanie Moore, acting director for the Couchiching OHT.

Since last October, the centre has completed 53,956 swabs, with a monthly peak of 8,026 in December 2020.

Those numbers are now down to just 400 per week.

“We are watching the September potential blip closely to make sure we can adjust our operations to accommodate,” Moore said.

As students get ready to head back to the classroom, Associate Medical Health Officer for the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, Dr. Colin Lee says, a fourth wave is inevitable.

He says protection against the delta variant requires at least 90 per cent of the population vaccinated.

“That’s just not going to happen because our under 12’s have not been approved for a vaccine for at least an x number of weeks or potentially months,” Lee said.

Lee adds the goal is to get as many eligible people vaccinated as possible, combined with current public health measures.

“Since June of this year, approximately 95 percent of our cases are either not fully immunized or not immunized at all,” Lee said.

Right now, 70 per cent of people 12 to 17 years old have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

At the same time, since February, young adults between 18 and 34 continue to have the highest rates of infection.

“Ultimately, we have to figure out what it is that we can do to encourage them to be immunized and what we are doing to potentially discourage them from not being immunized,” Lee said.

Moving forward, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit will emphasize pop-up clinics at places like beaches, parks and farmer’s markets.

“Those who would want to and can access our regular clinics have had lots of opportunity to do it; we do need to get to our harder to reach population,” Lee said.

As for schools, Lee says there are plans to include pop-up clinics there as well, although those details are still being worked out.

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