Windsor-Essex sees 70 new COVID-19 cases, biggest rise in a month, and 1 death

A day after reportingthelowest COVID-19 case increasesince late March, health officials for Windsor and Essex County reportedthebiggest daily uptick in nearly a month.

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) said Wednesday that 70 more residents have recently tested positive for COVID-19, compared with 16 on Tuesday.

According to Dr. Wajid Ahmed, medical officer of health, the sudden increase was not due to any known delay in receivingtesting data.

"Some of these things that we are seeing, it could be a result of a gathering or an event that we still have to investigate," he said, addingthe health unit is coming across "information gaps" in cases.

"Maybe people are not sharing all of the information or everything that they have done."

The health unit also announced COVID-19 has claimed another life in Windsor-Essex:a woman in her 70s who lived in the community. Officials could not comment on whether she had received a vaccine.

She is the 422nd person to die after being diagnosed withCOVID-19 in Windsor-Essex since the pandemic began.

As of Wednesday's update, 61.5 per cent of adults in Windsor-Essex, or 209,440 people, have receivedat least one dose of a vaccine.

The day before, the health unit opened up vaccination appointmentsto all adults,as well asessential workers16 and upand people12 and over with some health conditions. Appointments can be booked at WEvax.ca

Ahmedgavea reminder that public health measures must be followed, even by anyone who hasreceivedone or two shots.Currently, it'snot definitively knownwhether people who are vaccinated are able totransmit the virus, he said.

"We have to learn more from the real-world data to understand it better."

Overall, 358 known COVID-19 cases were active locally.Of the new cases announced Wednesday, 25 were close contacts of previously confirmed cases, 13 were community acquired, two wereoutbreak relatedand 30 were under investigation.

The Southwest Detention Centre remains in outbreak, andnine outbreaks are ongoing at workplaces:

• Four in Windsor's health-care and social assistance sector.
• One in Lakeshore's health-care and social assistance sector.
• Two in Windsor's manufacturing sector.
• One in Windsor's mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector.
• One in a retail setting in Windsor.

COVID-19 in Sarnia-Lambton, Chatham-Kent

On Wednesday, health officials in Sarnia-Lambton reported 16 new cases of COVID-19, though the active case count, at 71, has fallenby two cases since Tuesday.

Chatham-Kent Public Health reported four new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, with 37 cases active overall.

One more person living in the municipality has died due to COVID-19, bringing the pandemic death toll to 14.