Chatham-Kent’s Chief Medical Officer is hoping a visual explanation of how COVID-19 spreads will help bring home the message of working together to control the virus.
Public Health has released an infographic and video, mapping out how COVID spread from a family visit to a church in Blenheim, and then webbing its way across the community.
Dr. David Colby says it all began in October with some members of the church visiting family in another jurisdiction and, unbeknownst to them, contracting COVID-19.
“We had somebody in a household of six have contact with a member of the church, they all became positive, and then there were two more spread by a gathering, another by close contact, and another in a separate household. In total, we had 24 households affected by this by the end.”
However, Dr. Colby says it’s not about pinning blame, it’s about education.
“We were lucky with a lot of effort, we were able to keep our numbers down to only 40 positives with this outbreak,” Colby says. “Look at all this trouble for people. This is not a blame game. Everybody that’s referred to here is a victim, not a cause. But we all have a role to play, it takes a community to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
In all, the cases that started with the church in Blenheim resulted in two outbreaks, 170 students sent home from school, and close to 500 people in quarantine.
