WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit reported 157 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, and two new deaths.
WEHCU says a man in his 70s from a long-term care home, and a woman in her 70s from the community have passed away.
Windsor-Essex has had a total of 7,211 confirmed cases of the virus since March, including 5,285 people who have recovered.
“With the increased control measures that have been put in place in Windsor-Essex we hope that it would help bring our case counts down significantly, but we are still in the early phase to see and detect any changes in the short run," medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed said.
Of the new cases 16 are related to outbreaks, while 141 are still under investigation.
"When we are saying under investigation it doesn’t mean that we haven’t made any contact. It just means that the case investigator hadn’t closed the case yet by having all the information available, but most of these individuals are already identified about their positive case rates and their contacts are identified and have been reached as best as possible," Ahmed said.
Ahmed said based on the most recent weekly case rate Windsor-Essex’s case rate is 280.8 cases per 100,000 population.
For the week ending on December 19, Windsor-Essex’s percent positivity was 9.6 per cent. Windsor’s is the highest percent positivity in the province having completed 184,691 tests as of Dec. 19.
The WECHU says there are 1,797 active cases in the region. There are currently 79 people in the hospital with confirmed cases of COVID-19 including 17 in the ICU. There are also 131 people suspected to be COVID-positive in the hospital.
There are 44 outbreaks in the region, the long-term care home Chateau Park was added to the list of outbreaks Monday after three staff members tested positive for the virus.
The outbreaks in the region consist of:
- 18 long-term care and retirement homes
- 17 workplaces
- 3 hospital outbreaks
- 4 community outbreak
- 2 school outbreaks
The death toll related to COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex has reached 129. Seventy-nine deaths are related to residents in long-term care and retirement homes and two are related to migrant workers.
