2 Additional Deaths, 9 New Cases Of COVID-19, 2 New LTC Home Outbreaks In Windsor Essex, Wednesday Morning

Hello time traveller!!
This article is 1449 days old.
The information listed below is likely outdated and has been preserved for archival purposes.

Last updated: Wednesday May 6th, 9:36am

The Windsor Essex County Health Unit has confirmed 9 additional cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday morning, bringing the local total to 665. They said 229 people locally have recovered.

Cases increased from 656 on Tuesday May 5th to 665 on Wednesday May 6th.

The Health Unit says there have been two additional deaths due to COVID-19 bringing the local death toll to 57. Dr. Wajid Ahmed, Medical Officer of Health, says a male in his 80s and a female in her 90s, both residents of long term care homes, passed away.

Of the 57 total, local deaths, the Health Unit says 43 deaths have been residents of long-term care and retirement homes.

The Health Unit says two long term care homes now have new outbreaks.  Dr. Ahmed says Chartwell Oak Park LaSalle and Berkshire Care Centre in Windsor are now under outbreak.  He says each of the two facilities have one staff member who has tested positive for COVID-19 and “the assumption is they acquired it while out in the community.”

In addition to the two new outbreaks, there are existing outbreaks at eight long-term care and retirement homes: the Village of St. Clair, AMICA, Sun Parlour, Lifetimes on Riverside, Franklin Gardens, Heron Terrace, Country Village Homes, and Extendicare Southwood Lakes.

As of Wednesday morning 9,027 tests have been conducted and 1,343 tests are still pending.

Dr. Ahmed says testing is now taking six to seven days from when a test is conducted to when results are available.

He says the delays are due to a variety of factors such as difficulties obtaining testing supplies such as swabs, difficulties arranging mass testing in a short period of time such as at long-term care homes, delays due to a lack of capacity at Ontario’s public health labs, and further delays when public health labs have to send the tests by courier to other labs that have space testing capacity.

“Every lab has a certain capacity and if the lab exceeds their capacity they have to send the specimen to another lab to get tested,” Dr. Ahmed said. “The logistics of these going to a central site and then further redistribution also takes time.”