The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit is reporting another death linked to COVID-19.
The death was reported on Tuesday morning. Jeff Moco of the health unit’s communications team said a woman in her 50s passed away at a hospital outside of Chatham-Kent. It’s unknown if she was vaccinated against the virus.
The local health unit has now logged a total of 24 deaths linked to COVID-19 since the pandemic started.
Meanwhile, after an increase in new cases over the weekend, the health unit listed just one new case on Tuesday, along with two resolved cases. The active case count in Chatham-Kent is now down to 45. Just one month ago, the municipality was at 95 active cases.
"Often we notice that there's a lot of testing towards the end of the week, not as much at the beginning of the week," said Chatham-Kent Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby. "I'm expecting those numbers to drop again. But I would say we're doing reasonably well."
The number of outbreaks in Chatham-Kent also dropped by one on Tuesday. Outbreaks continue at Chatham Christian High School and at an undisclosed workplace.
As of the latest update on November 3, 75,736 Chatham-Kent residents 12 and older have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, which works out to around 81 per cent of the population.
On Saturday, Ontario residents in select high-priority groups were able to start booking their COVID-19 booster doses.
According to Colby, the third doses are being well received so far locally.
"This a precautionary type of maneuver that most provinces are undertaking," he explained. "It's because the immunity tends to wane with time with all coronaviruses...With all of them, the immunity wanes over six months. We still have good immunity from either natural infection or immunization at six months. But we're starting to see the anti-body levels go down by eight months."
Colby added that he believes a large majority of the province will be eligible for booster shots by the end of the year.
Across Ontario, provincial health officials recorded 441 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday along with three more deaths.
