Algoma Public Health's urging immediate action to stop a COVID-19 surge in the region.
The health unit's warning all of its communities are at risk - given people routinely travel between the two - and people of all ages have been infected, as it's reporting its highest COVID-19 activity ever, adding 82 cases over the last four days - one was in Central and East Algoma, the rest in the Sault Ste. Marie area, with nearly all stemming from close contact with a known case.
It currently has 135 "active" cases, with thirteen in hospital.
To address the surge, the health unit urges everyone to: stay home and isolate if sick, even with mild symptoms; to cut back on unnecessary activities with unmasked face-to-face close contact with those you don't live with, and to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
It's also warning of multiple potential exposures: at the Rockstar Bar in Sault Ste. Marie on November 6th; on a Porter Airlines flight from Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie October 31st; and at GoodLife Fitness in Sault Ste. Marie November 8th.
The Algoma District School Board - meanwhile - has an individual at another of its Sault Ste. Marie schools, Pinewood Public, has tested positive, while Ontario's Ministry of the Solicitor General has reported at least a dozen at the Algoma Treatment and Remand Centre, Tenaris Algoma Tubes has seen at least seven, and Sault Area Hospital's monitoring an outbreak of at least three cases in a medical unit.
It has also prompted Batchewana First Nation to implement a two-week lockdown, extending to November 28th.