For the second day in a row, the Windsor Essex County Health Unit is reporting only four new cases of COVID-19 in the region.
That brings the total number of confirmed cases to 920. Of the positive cases, 490 have recovered, 63 people have passed away, and 14 people are currently in hospital.
The health unit continues to manage outbreaks at two long-term care facilities in the region. At one time there were 18 facilities managing outbreaks.
"The pandemic has really opened up our eyes in terms of what are the challenges in these institutions and I'm really hoping once this is all done we will have good lessons from this exercise and we'll have a stronger system in place to ensure the safety and well-being of our most vulnerable population," said Dr. Wajid Ahmed, Medical Officer of Health for Windsor-Essex.
In his view, a large outbreak at a single facility is the result of system failure and not the actions of management or staff.
"It's no fault of any of the home, or any of the employees or people working in that facility. I think it's a big systematic failure and we'll have to have that review to find what will work best and how we can avoid and prevent these things from happening in the future," said Dr. Ahmed.
The health unit continues to monitor all long-term care homes and anyone who presents with new symptoms is tested immediately.
The number of people being tested in the region continues to rise. To date 16,080 have been tested. The health unit is waiting on 1,084 test results.
