The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit has issued a new letter of instruction for employers of temporary foreign workers.
The letter calls on employers to immediately cancel, suspend, or postpone the arrival any temporary foreign workers to the region.
"Recently we've had eight agricultural enterprises with COVID-19 cases," says Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, Acting Medical Officer of Health. "This constitutes 15 bunkhouses and at the current time, approximately 275 people have been recognized to have COVID or be close contacts with individuals with COVID and are on self isolation."
The letter goes into effect immediately and is in place until Feb. 1 at 11:59 p.m.
Dr. Nesathurai says the region has seen an increase in the burden of COVID-19 among the migrant farm worker community.
"In Windsor-Essex there is a self isolation hotel or self isolation residence {Isolation and Recovery Centre} that was virtually empty a week ago, today it's completely full and we're now using three hotels to provide self isolation spaces for people," says Dr. Nesathurai.
He says the health unit estimates roughly 2,000 temporary foreign workers are already in the region.
"The exposures are related to people who have been here for some period of time, who resided and worked in the health district and also among new arrivals who have recently arrived and travel from overseas to Canada to begin their work," says Dr. Nesathurai.
He says the pause will give the health unit some relief to manage the current situation.
"The outbreaks and cases at the farms burden the public health service and other community resources including the paramedic service, ambulance service, hospital services and one of the things we're overall concerned about in the health district and throughout the province is how this would affect the hospital and other health care services," says Dr. Nesathurai.
The Letter of Instruction states that failure to comply with the instructions is an offence under the Reopening Ontario Act.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the health unit says between 25 to 27 per cent of temporary foreign workers have tested positive for COVID-19.
Click here to read the entire Letter of Instruction.
The City of Windsor operates the Isolation and Recovery Centre for temporary foreign workers. The City along with Windsor West MP Brian Masse have been urging the federal government to renew funding for the centre.
Nearly $18-million in funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada is due to expire at the end of March 2022.