Windsor-Essex County Health Unit has released its annual COVID-19 response report for 2022.
Throughout 2022, the WECHU COVID-19 Response Team investigated more than 26,000 cases and 400 outbreaks.
Impact of COVID-19 in the community in 2022:
234,241 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered in 2022.
COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage in Windsor-Essex County"
Dr. Mehdi Aloosh, Medical Officer of Health for the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit says the rates of vaccination in 2022 were not as great as they would have like to have seen.
"It was not great coverage based off some of the specification of the COVID-19 and the expected coverage depends on the disease. So the COVID-19 [vaccination rate] in 2022, it was not excellent but we hope that going forward we would have better coverage."
He says the vaccination rate is very fluid as things tend to change every six months, and says the numbers become more important when the risk of catching COVID-19 becomes higher in the community.
"At the moment if you ask me, am I concerned about these numbers? I would say that no we are probably not concerned at the moment, but going into the fall cold and flu season, I would recommend everybody who is eligible to get vaccines that they want, but not now."
Dr. Aloosh says those who are high risk should still be up to date with vaccines year round, and vaccine clinics should start around October.
He says we can usually look to the southern hemisphere on what to expect for the upcoming cold and flu season.
"Some of the observation in Australia shows that they had a big cold and flu season there. The season starts in January until August. Influenza was reported the most, the majority of the spreading of infectous diseases in Australia."
He says Australian experts have found that low vaccination rates amoung children was one of the main issues there.
Since the start of 2023 and according to the WECHU website as of July 19: