LONDON, ONT -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting 116 new cases of COVID-19 and two additional deaths in the region on Saturday. 

The two deaths include a woman in her 80s from a long-term care home and a man in his 60s from the community.

The local death toll related to COVID-19 has reached 290 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.

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 11,662 confirmed cases, including 9,754 people who have recovered.

Here’s the breakdown of new cases:

• 18 are related to outbreaks

• 16 are close contacts of confirmed cases

• 3 is community acquired

• 79 are still under investigation.

WECHU says 1,618 cases are considered active. There are 101 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the hospital.

There are 52 local outbreaks - 19 outbreaks at long-term care or retirement homes, 25 workplace outbreaks, six hospital outbreaks and two community outbreaks.