COVID-19 has taken another life in Chatham-Kent.
Chatham-Kent Public Health Spokesperson Caress Lee Carpenter said a man in his 70s died at the Chatham hospital. The latest death is the 47th COVID-19 fatality in the municipality and the 20th during this month.
The health unit also reported another COVID-19 outbreak at an unidentified group home. The latest outbreak has 23 cases. The number of outbreaks has also dropped to 11 after outbreaks at Hudson Manor Retirement Home in Tilbury and Wallaceburg Retirement Residence were declared over on Wednesday.
The largest outbreaks are in long-term care facilities and retirement homes. Village on the Ridge Retirement Residence in Ridgetown now has 32 cases and Park Street Place Retirement Home in Dresden now has 30 cases. On Wednesday, a woman in her 90s and a man in his 90s both died in unidentified long-term care homes in Chatham-Kent that are under an outbreak. Chatham-Kent Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby said these deaths are inevitable despite strict screening protocols because not all seniors in long-term care facilities and retirement homes are vaccinated and those who get infected with the virus are old and frail.
"We are dealing with a large number of people that are infected that are of advanced age. All of them with comorbidity problems. So, of course, there's going to be mortality in this area," said Colby. "The number of [recent long-term care] deaths is actually small compared to other outbreaks that we had of comparative size since the pandemic started. So, it's really a question of proportion."
Colby said the high number of deaths this month [almost half the total] is due to the large numbers of Omicron now compared to fewer COVID-19 deaths locally in the beginning of the pandemic.
"I think that's more of a reflection of low mortality in the rest of the pandemic than proportionally higher mortality now," Dr. Colby said. "We're having about the same proportion of deaths with Omicron than everybody else."
He also said there's no denying Omicron is very contagious and a high percentage of the population will eventually get COVID-19.
"The probability that people will get infected with time is extremely high. In terms of avoiding infection, that's going to be very, very hard," said the doctor.
Colby said aggressive case and contact management, active screening for all working staff, and vaccination protocols for the visiting public are all still in place at all local long-term care and retirement homes and he's at a loss of what else to do.
The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is reporting 32 COVID-19 patients in the Chatham hospital, 11 of whom are unvaccinated. Hospital CEO Lori Marshall said 13 are being treated primarily for the virus while the others were admitted for different illnesses and tested positive for COVID-19. Marshall also said six of the patients are in the ICU with COVID-19 and five of them are on ventilators.
Marshall said 104 staff are being affected by COVID-19, which is down from last week. She said 49 are either positive or waiting for a test result and 54 are self-isolating out of precaution but are allowed to come to work. One person is working from home.
Chatham-Kent Public Health reported the average number of cases per day continues to drop and is at 58 cases a day on Thursday, down three from the previous day.
Ontario is reporting 70 new COVID-19 deaths and 599 people in the ICU. There are also 3,645 hospitalizations due to COVID-19, a decrease of nine per cent from the numbers reported on Wednesday.
