It has been two years since Lambton Public Health (LPH) reported its first cases of COVID-19.
On March 25, 2020, the health unit and Bluewater Health reported five people in hospital with COVID-19, all of whom were over the age of 60.
LPH Manager of Family Health Kevin Churchill spoke with Sarnia News Today. He said it has certainly been a challenging two years for those in the community, as well as those in the health care industry.
"On the positive side, we've pulled together and we've learned to do many new skills, managed over 10,000 cases of COVID-19, we delivered collectively with our partners over 269,000 doses of vaccine -- really within a one year period," he said.
"We're grateful to the community for supporting those efforts and very grateful to our staff who have been just tremendous during this period."
Even though the pandemic isn't over, Churchill said public health care workers are starting to get some "breathing room" now.
"We've seen the overall number of cases decline and the demand for vaccinations has gone down as well so we're definitely starting to get some breathing room and turn our attention back to many programs that have not had our full attention over the last two years."
Churchill said there are still questions being asked in terms of lessons learned, but the health unit has learned how to adapt and use new systems to report daily data.
"I can say we certainly learned our workforce and community are very resilient," he said. "I don't think any of us could have imagined being required to do all of the things [we have] and all of the challenges we weathered through over the last two years."
Shortly after the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Sarnia-Lambton in 2020, the region recorded its first deaths related to the virus. An individual in their 80s who tested positive for COVID-19 died on March 27, 2020, and another person in their 80s died on March 29, 2020.
Since then, the local death toll has risen to a total of 133.
On Friday, Lambton Public Health reported 66 new lab confirmed infections since Wednesday's report, for a total of 10,250 over the last two years. Bluewater Health is reporting fewer than five COVID-positive patients at the Sarnia hospital.
The National Day of Observance was recognized on March 11 as it was the two-year anniversary since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic.
