WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting 49 new cases of COVID-19 and two additional deaths.

WECHU says a man in his 40s and a woman in her 70s, both from the community, are the latest people to die related to the virus.

“It is a serious virus and it is killing people at different ages,” says medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed.

Ahmed says the health unit has stopped reporting additional clinical details due to privacy reasons.

The death toll linked to COVID-19 has reached 411 people.

The health unit says 560 local Variant of Concern (VOC) cases have been identified in Windsor-Essex and 133 of the cases are still active.

Ahmed says the first two cases of the variant first discovered in South Africa have been identified in the region. He says that variant believed to be more transmissible than the original COVID-19 virus.

Windsor-Essex has had a total of 14,893 confirmed cases of the virus, including 14,021 people who have recovered.

Here’s the breakdown of new cases:

  • 18 cases are close contacts of confirmed cases
  • 8 cases are community acquired
  • 1 case is travel-related outside of North America
  • 22 cases are still under investigation

There are 461 cases considered currently active. The health unit says 17 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are hospitalized and two are in the ICU.

There are six outbreaks in the region, including five outbreaks at workplaces and one at a school.

Here’s the number of Windsor-Essex County residents vaccinated:

  • 123,069 WEC residents have received at least one dose of a vaccine
  • 109,849 WEC residents have received only 1 dose of a vaccine
  • 13,220 WEC residents have received both doses of a vaccine
  • A total of 136,289 doses have been administered to WEC residents.