Sudbury's COVID-19 deaths doubled since the start of 2022

The number of COVID-related deaths has more than doubled in the Sudbury and Manitoulin area since the beginning of the year.

Public Health Sudbury & Districts added another four COVID-19 fatalities to the pandemic death toll on Friday, bringing the overall total to 99 in the Sudbury and Manitoulin area.

After the first 21 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a total of 49 deaths due to the disease. In the last six weeks, officials with Public Health Sudbury & Districts said 50 more COVID-19 deaths have been recorded.

The cause of the most recent deaths this year is due to the Omicron variant, health officials said.

"Omicron a very transmissible and in Omicron we are seeing reinfections and also breakthrough cases. Even people who are fully vaccinated (are) getting Omicron. So, as a result, we are seeing, unfortunately, more deaths happening in our community and Ontario as well," said Dar Malaviarachchi, an epidemiologist with Public Health Sudbury & Districts.

Officials with the health unit said since the beginning of the pandemic to Feb. 2, the majority of deaths were in people over the age of 80, 59 per cent.

They also said between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2, more than half of the 37 people who passed away from COVID-19 were vaccinated. There were another 13 COVID-19 deaths recorded since Feb. 2 and Feb. 11 that are not factored in.

"A total of 20 were among fully vaccinated which is 54 per cent and 17 deaths, 46 per cent were among unvaccinated," said Malaviarachchi. "As the vaccine rates increase, we are going to see more deaths among fully vaccinated and we have pretty high rates for vaccination rates."

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 69 per cent of the deaths have involved unvaccinated individuals, 30 per cent involved fully vaccinated residents and one per cent involved partially vaccinated.

Public Health Sudbury & Districts said COVID-19 was the underlying cause in the majority of all deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

"A total of 79 per cent were due to COVID-19 being the underlying cause of death and then 21 where COVID-19 has contributed to the cause of death but (was) not the underlying cause of death," said Malaviarachchi.

The four additional deaths that were reported on Friday afternoon involved residents between the ages of 50 and 70 years old.

Since the pandemic began, 10,305 COVID-19 infections have been confirmed and 9,589 of those cases have recovered from the disease.

Most of the COVID-19 deaths, 90, involve Greater Sudbury residents, while three are from Sudbury District and six are from Manitoulin Island.

As of Friday at 4 p.m., there were 48 patients with COVID-19 in hospitals located in the Sudbury and Manitoulin districts, including five in the intensive care unit.