WINDSOR,ONT. -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting eight new COVID-19 cases on Monday and one more person has died related to the virus.
The health unit says the latest death was a woman in her 80s from the community. The death toll related to COVID-19 has reached 398 people.
Windsor-Essex has had a total of 13,413 confirmed cases of the virus, including 12,723 people who have recovered.
WECHU CEO Theresa Marentette says while Monday's case numbers are low, it is important people continue to follow public health measures.
"That's a good number today but we know that it can change very quickly," she says.
Here’s the breakdown of new cases:
- 1 case is outbreak related
- 5 cases are close contacts of confirmed cases
- 1 case is community acquired
- 1 case is still under investigation
WECHU says 292 cases are considered active. Marentette says 35 local cases are Variant of Concern (VOC) cases with two reported as the B.1.1.7 variant first reported in the United Kingdom while the others are unknown.
Marentette says the guidance and public health measures associated with VOC cases is no different than that of COVID.
“I wouldn’t say that anything is different, it’s just that we know it is in our community, it can spread more rapidly and it’s essential we get the close contacts isolated as quickly as possible," she says.
There are 32 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the hospital and six people are in the ICU.
There are 15 outbreaks in the region, including four at workplaces, three community outbreaks including the Southwest Detention Centre, the Downtown Mission, and Victoria Manor, one hospital outbreak, four in long-term care and retirement homes and three school outbreaks at Monseigneur Jean Noel, Bellwood Public School and W.F. Herman Academy.
