The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) is taking another step to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our community.
Some time this week the health unit will begin reporting any workplace where two or more employees have tested positive within a reasonable timeline to suspect transmission.
“So what we will be doing is, if we find two or more people in a workplace within a reasonable period of time to suspect that they may have come in contact or potentially infected one or the other, we will be sharing that information with the community and that will be part of our disclosure process from this point forward,” says Dr. Wajid Ahmed, Medical Officer of Health.
“Disclosing these outbreaks to the public is part of an important education and notification strategy that WECHU will continue to do for the community,” he says.
When it comes to the timing of these disclosures, Dr. Ahmed defends the decision not to disclose workplaces earlier on in the pandemic saying it has never been a requirement, and still isn't.
“We are moving forward for it to help us better understand what is happening locally and also provide more information for local decision making and local action for our community,’ says Dr. Ahmed.
38 new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Wednesday, all of which are in agri-farm sector workers.
According to Dr. Ahmed, about 20 per cent of the total cases are in agri-farm sector workers and 90 per cent of those are in the temporary foreign workers. The other 10 per cent is made up of administrative staff or residents of Windsor-Essex who happen to work at one of the facilities and may not have been exposed to the virus in the workplace.
There are now a total of 1,104 cases, 67 deaths and 656 resolved cases.