WINDSOR, ONT. -- Windsor-Essex will be heading into a fifth week in the ‘Red-Control’ level of Ontario’s COVID-19 response framework.

The province released the list of regions changing levels on Friday. Windsor-Essex is staying in the red zone and Chatham-Kent is staying in orange. Lambton Health Unit, which includes Sarnia, is moving into ‘Grey-Lockdown’ on Monday.

Last week Windsor-Essex medical health officer Dr. Wajid Ahmed said the region was on the bubble between current red zone and the less-restricted orange zone.

Ahmed is on a two-week leave of absence that began on Wednesday, but health unit CEO Theresa Marentette said Thursday that she has not had any conversations with the province about changing levels.

“If we’re looking strictly at the numbers I do think our numbers are not where they should be at this time,” said Marentette.

This is what's allowed in the red zone of the provinc'e reopening framework.

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit released the region's weekly epidemiological summary on Friday with a summary of monitoring indicators:

  • Most recent completed weekly case rate = 43.8 cases/100,000 population
  • Most recent 7-day rate = 54.8 cases/100,000 population
  • Per cent positivity = 2.4% (full week)
  • Most recent 7-days percent positivity = 2.4%
  • Ro (effective) = 1.3

Here’s the criteria for the red zone:

  • Weekly case rate of 40 or more/100,000 population
  • Percent positivity of 2.5 or more
  • Ro(effective) of 1.2 or more

The health unit posted the epidemiological summary on YouTube, recorded by Ramsey D'Souza, WECHU’s manager of epidemiology and evaluation.

“We’re still in the criteria for red for some indicators, whereas other indicators may also see us in the orange category as well,” said D’Souza.

By comparison, in the previous week, the per cent positivity for the full week was 2.6 per cent, the case rate was 54.1 cases per 100,000 population and 39.3 over seven days and the Ro(effective) was 0.73.

To qualify for orange, the case rate must be between 25 and 39.9, the per cent positivity between 1.3 to 2.4 and Rt about 1 to 1.1.

Windsor moved from the red zone into lockdown on Dec. 14 and then back into the red level on Feb. 16.

Moving to orange would ease some restrictions and increase capacity limits for businesses and social gatherings.

Chatham-Kent and Middlesex-London transitioned to orange on Monday, March 1.

The five levels of the response framework are green, yellow, orange, red and grey-lockdown.