The COVID-19 case rate in Windsor-Essex continues to decline as the vaccination rate increases.
The current case rate is 4.2 cases for every 100,000 residents in the region. Medical Officer of Health Dr. Wajid Ahmed said this is the lowest case rate the region has seen since the start of the pandemic.
There were around 2,386 people tested last week for COVID-19, and 1.5 per cent of tests came back positive for the virus.
Over the last week, the Windsor Essex County Health Unit often reported a reduction of cases due to "routine data clean-up." Dr. Ahmed said this is because they have more time to do more investigation into the tests coming back positive.
"Our pretest likelihood is decreasing, our community cases are decreasing, and when we are repeating some of these labs based on the clinical data, we deem them false positives," said Dr. Ahmed.
Dr. Ahmed said the use of rapid testing also increases the likelihood of getting false-positive results.
On Friday, the health unit recorded six new cases of the virus. Among the new cases, one is travel-related, one is community-acquired, one case is a close contact of a previously confirmed infection and three are still under investigation.
There are 26 active cases in the community, and 12 of them have been identified as variants of concern.
Local hospitals are currently treating four patients who have tested positive for the virus, and two of them are in the intensive care unit.
To date, 75 per cent of adults have received one dose of a vaccine and 52.7 per cent have been fully vaccinated.
