By flattening the curve, hospital officials confident it can be contained, if and when tests confirm the virus has landed in Thunder Bay, adding they're in great shape to treat an influx of patients.

Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre chief of staff Dr. Zaki Ahmed on Friday, March 20, 2020 says it's likely COVID-19 is already in Thunder Bay. (Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com)

1 / 1 Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre chief of staff Dr. Zaki Ahmed on Friday, March 20, 2020 says it's likely COVID-19 is already in Thunder Bay. (Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com)

THUNDER BAY – Odds are good that COVID-19 has already arrived in Thunder Bay.

“It is likely,” said Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre chief of staff Dr. Zaki Ahmed on Friday, meeting with local media to discuss the latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

But that’s not a cause for panic, he added.

“As long as people do their job at keeping themselves self-isolated and not do the things that they’re not supposed to do, not going out into large spaces and not spread that disease, it’s going to be self-contained,” Ahmed said.

“That’s what we’re really hoping for.”

To date 91 people have presented with potential symptoms of COVID-19 in Thunder Bay, with 85 swabs being taken.

All of the tests that have come back to date are negative. However, Ahmed said health-care officials know it’s only a matter of time before COVID-19 presents itself in the city.

It’s already in Fort Frances and there are presumptive cases in Atikokan.

“We expect COVID-19 to be here. I don’t think we are in any kind of delusions that we’re going to be immune from that. What we’re hoping for is to have that slow curve. As you have a slow curve, it gives more people a chance to develop immunity. You have more chance for vaccines to work,” Ahmed said.

“As you flatten the curve you have less people at the same time that will require ventilation.”

There is good news.

Dr. Stewart Kennedy, who is heading the hospital’s COVID-19 response team, said Thunder Bay Regional is well equipped to meet the capacity needed to treat patients who become infected with the disease, which has killed more than 10,000 worldwide and infected more than 300 since arriving in Ontario.

They’ve got 25 ventilators in place, thanks to previous pandemic planning, and 22 intensive-care unit beds freed up.

By cancelling elective surgery, as well as the fallout from COVID-19 precautionary measures, the hospital has also freed up a number of beds in anticipation of an influx of patients affected by the outbreak.

“At our hospital, we have total funded beds of 389,” Kennedy said. “As of this morning, we had 300 (used), a 77 per cent occupancy. By cancelling elective surgeries, which do not threaten the lives and the well-being of our patients here in Thunder Bay, we hope to get that bed count down to 250.

“If we get that bed count down to 250 and this virus hits Thunder Bay, we have excess capacity to take care of those individuals who need our services.”

Health officials, who were joined by Mayor Bill Mauro, also encouraged the public to play a role preventing or minimizing the spread of the coronavirus.

Kennedy said if one knows someone who has been out of country and isn’t following the guidelines of 14 days in self-quarantine, now is not the time to stay silent.

“We expect every public person to call them on it,” Kennedy said.

Hospital officials also addressed questions from the public surrounding who qualifies for tests.

Ahmed said the city has the capacity to conduct about 60 tests per day, though in an emergency, that number could ramp up.

For now, only those who meet the criteria will be given tests, which include a cough and travel history to areas where an outbreak is already in place.

“Anyone who needs a swab, who meets the protocol, will get a swab,” Kennedy said.