WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting eight additional deaths and 99 new COVID-19 cases on Friday.

Five of the people who died were from long-term care and retirement homes – a man in his 70s, a woman in her 80s, two men and a woman in their 90s. Three were from the community – a man in his 60s, a man and a woman in their 80s.

The local death toll related to COVID-19 has reached 288 people.

Medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed gave his weekly epidemiological summary on Friday.

He says about 11,000 COVID-19 tests are completed per week in Windsor-Essex and the per cent positivity rate is going down. The per cent positivity is 8.7 per cent this week, compared to 11.7 last week.

Per cent positivity

WECHU gave a breakdown of per cent positivity based on postal code in Windsor-Essex from Jan 13 – 19, with more positive cases shown in Leamington, Kingsville and Windsor.

Ahmed says despite the decreasing case counts in the region, it’s still too soon to know when the lockdown restrictions should be eased. The stay-at-home order is in place until at least Feb. 11.

“Around that time there will be further discussion looking at our case rates, looking at our trends and see what’s going on in Windsor-Essex before easing some of these restrictions,” says Ahmed.

Since March, Windsor-Essex has had a total of 11,546 confirmed cases, including 9,268 people who have recovered.

Here’s the breakdown of new cases:

  • 11 are related to outbreaks
  • 11 are close contacts of confirmed cases
  • 1 is community acquired
  • 76 are still under investigation.

WECHU says 1,990 cases are considered active. There are 110 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the hospital and 16 people are in the ICU.

There are 50 local outbreaks - 19 outbreaks at long-term care or retirement homes, 23 workplace outbreaks, six hospital outbreaks and two community outbreaks.