WINDSOR, ONT. -- The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting 32 new COVID-19 cases in the region and one additional death.

The person who died was a man in his 70s from the community.

The local death toll related to COVID-19 has climbed to 379 people.

Medical health officer Dr. Wajid Ahmed gave his weekly epidemiological summary on Friday. He says the per cent positivity of the COVID-19 tests for for the full week was 2.3 per cent. The case rate dropped to 47.8 per 100,000 people. The Ro(effective) is 1.03.

Case rate Windsor-Essex

Ahmed says some of those indicators fall under the ‘Red-Control’ zone of the province’s COVID-19 response framework for restrictions. He anticipates that the region will stay in the red level of the five-tier system for at least another week. The province made it official by releasing a list of zones on Friday afternoon.

The wastewater data, which is a pilot project with Glier and the University of Windsor, indicates a rise in SARS-CoV-2 in Windsor-Essex over the past week.

Wastewater data

Windsor-Essex has had a total of 12,931 confirmed cases of the virus, including 12,291 people who have recovered.

Here’s the breakdown of new cases:

  • 14 are close contacts of confirmed cases
  • 9 are community acquired
  • 1 is related to an outbreak
  • 1 is travel-related
  • 7 are still under investigation.

WECHU says 261 cases are considered active. There are 47 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the hospital and five people are in the ICU.

There are 12 outbreaks in the region, including three at LTC and retirement homes, five at workplaces, two community outbreaks and two hospital outbreaks.