WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting 195 new COVID-19 cases in the region on Monday – a new single-day record.
Windsor-Essex has had a total of 4,763 confirmed cases of the virus, including 3893 people who have recovered.
“It is really an unbelievable number of cases that we are seeing,” says medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed.
He says the health unit shares the most up-to-date information with the community to make sure they are being transparent.
“When we see these type of numbers it’s, I don’t have the words to describe it, but it basically just brings us down,” says Ahmed. “All the energy that we need to go ahead with the day and to figure out now 195 cases in a day and each case investigation if it’s taking us one to two hours for each investigation – how many staff hours is it taking?”
He says it adds more stress for the health unit and the community.
Ahmed hopes that with the new lockdown measures in place on Monday, people will follow the guidelines and the numbers will start to decline.
While the region was still in the ‘Red-Control’ level over the weekend, shoppers flocked to Windsor’s malls and Ahmed is not happy about it.
"I'm honestly, I'm disappointed by the number of people that were out and about over the weekend," says Ahmed.
Under lockdown, the malls are now closed, except to essential stores.
WECHU says due to the high case number, there is no specific breakdown of new cases being released on Monday. Health unit CEO Theresa Marentette says many of the new cases are attributed to one long-term care home that is in outbreak, some are in the agri-farm sector and household contacts in the community.
There are 779 active cases in the region. The health unit says 53 people are in the hospital with confirmed cases and seven are in the ICU.
There are 21 outbreaks in Windsor-Essex, including nine workplace outbreaks, seven long-term care outbreaks, two community outbreaks and two school outbreaks and one hospital outbreak.
Chartwell St. Clair Beach is reporting 21 residents and one staff member who have tested positive.
Over the weekend, there were five new deaths and 115 new cases.
The death toll related to COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex has reached 91. Fifty-six deaths are related to residents in retirement or long-term care homes and two are related to migrant workers.
The previous single-day high in Windsor-Essex was 127 on Dec. 9.
