Health Unit To Soon Offer Random COVID-19 Testing Across Windsor Essex, 17 New Cases As Of Friday

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The Windsor Essex County Health Unit has confirmed 17 additional cases of COVID-19 as of Friday, bringing the local total to 843. They said 473 people locally have recovered.

Cases increased from 826 on Thursday May 21st to 843 on Friday May 22nd.

The Health Unit says there have been no additional deaths due to COVID-19 as of Friday and the local death toll stands at 63.

Officials said Friday the COVID-19 outbreaks at these long-term care and retirement homes have ended:

• Leamington Mennonite Home
• Dolce Vita
• Chartwell Oak Park Terrace
• Village at St. Clair
• Franklin Gardens

They say there are still ongoing outbreaks at eight facilities:

• Extendicare Tecumseh (St. Alphonse)
• Regency Park
• Banwell Gardens
• Riverside Place
• Berkshire Care Centre
• Extendicare Southwood Lakes
• Sun Parlour Home
• Heron Terrace

The Health Unit says 15,019 total tests have been conducted since testing began locally and 1,006 tests are pending as of Friday.

Random Testing

Dr. Wajid Ahmed, Medical Officer of Health announced the Health Unit will soon be offering random testing for COVID-19 across Windsor-Essex using a drive-through testing centre and a trailer-based testing centre, with the help of Windsor Essex EMS.

“To make it truly random, and have a true sense of community spread, the plan is to pick a spot in the community where we can find many people outdoors and offer spot testing after collecting baseline information,” he said.

“You do not need any symptoms to get tested,” Dr. Ahmed said, “but you do need to have a health card and other form of identification to ensure that we can reach out to you in case you are positive.”

Dr. Ahmed says more details will be released soon and testing is expected to begin next week.

Weekly Epidemiological Summary

In summary, Dr. Ahmed says the current case counts locally continue to show an overall declining trend with day-to-day fluctuations; Windsor-Essex has the 4th highest rate of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the province; 56 per cent of cases locally have now recovered; the overall case fatality rate in Windsor-Essex is slightly lower compared to all of Ontario; the doubling time of cases locally is generally similar to the province and the country; and the current rate of transmission (R0) has increased from 0.86 last Friday to 1.07 today. Dr. Ahmed says a R0 of above 1 means each infection causes more than one new infection.

The entire presentation can be viewed at this link.  The presentation starts at the 10:00 minute mark.