The Windsor Essex County Health Unit reported an additional 136 new cases of COVID-19 in the region on Tuesday.
Among the new cases, 35 are linked to outbreaks currently active in the community. Four cases are community-acquired, eight are linked to household contacts and two are linked to close contacts. The rest of the cases are still under investigation by health unit staff.
The health unit is experiencing significant delays in the case and contact management. As of 2 p.m. Monday afternoon, the health unit still had 528 positive cases to reach out to. Due to this backlog, the health unit is making significant changes in the way it reaches out to positive cases and their contacts.
"We may ask these individuals to call their contacts directly, immediately and public health may or may not circle back with these contacts in the longterm," said Medical Officer of Health Dr. Wajid Ahmed. "We will be prioritizing cases based on the relative risk of each of these individuals and the new ones more specifically to allow better containment methods rather than going back to cases that were reported positive a few days ago."
Health officials are asking anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19 to get tested immediately and begin their isolation with their household as soon as they are showing symptoms.
"Anyone who is symptomatic at this time, with the high positivity rate in our community, the likelihood of them being positive for COVID is very high," said Dr. Ahmed. "So anyone who is showing symptoms should start isolation immediately along with their family members."
Dr. Ahmed said health unit staff will be focusing on cases linked to outbreaks where containment is the biggest concern.
There are currently 23 active outbreaks in the community including seven at local long-term care facilities.
Local hospitals are treating 53 people who are positive for COVID-19 and 10 of those are in the intensive care unit. Hospital officials suspect there are another 67 patients in hospital who have the virus.
There are 837 active cases of COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex.
