WINDSOR, ONT. -- Health officials will be looking closely at the numbers to determine if Windsor-Essex would qualify to move from ‘Grey-Lockdown’ to ‘Red-Control’ when the provincial stay-at-home order expires next month.
The stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 9 and schools are closed to in-class learning until at least Feb. 10.
Windsor-Essex medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed gave his weekly epidemiological summary on Friday with the latest data, noting the COVID-19 situation is improving in the region.
Ahmed says he is hopeful the region will be able to move back down to the red zone when the stay-at-home order ends.
“Just looking at the rates, I anticipate we would be in the red zone,” says Ahmed.
The government announced Nov. 3 that all Ontario public health unit regions would be categorized into five levels: Green-Prevent, Yellow-Protect, Orange-Restrict, Red-Control, and Grey-Lockdown.
The full guidelines for each tier are outlined in Ontario's COVID-19 Response Framework.
The provincial government considers several factors when deciding what level each health unit region should be in for the five-tier shutdown framework.
These are some of the indicators:
Case count:
The seven-day average case count for Windsor-Essex was 69 on Friday. The red level guidelines feature a weekly incidence rate of less than 40 per 100,000.
“We can see that the number of cases is starting to decline,” says Ahmed. “Overall the graph is moving in the right direction.”
Per cent positivity:
The positivity rate for Windsor-Essex is at 6.2 per cent. That is the fourth highest rate in the province. The provincial threshold for the red zone is a per cent positivity of 2.5 per cent or less.
Doubling time:
“The blue line indicating that we are currently doing better than the Canadian and provincial doubling time and we hope that we continue on this trend,” says Ahmed.
Wastewater data:
Based on the weekly wastewater data collected by Glier and the University of Windsor, Ahmed says it appears the curve is flattening. He adds it is a pilot project.
ICU Capacity
The province also looks at ICU capacity. Currently there are nine patients in the ICU locally.
It is unknown if the province will put health units back into the five categories when the stay-at-home order ends. An announcement is expected as the deadline gets closer.
