Chatham-Kent Public Health is changing the way it delivers daily COVID updates.
Since last March, the health unit has sent out daily updates every afternoon around 2:30 – starting today, that’s being bumped up to 10:30 each morning.
The hope is the earlier time will improve clarity around case counts, and create more consistent reporting between the local health unit and the province.
“Weekday online status updates will now only include confirmed cases reported to CK Public Health up to the previous day,” Public Health officials say in an online statement. “Confirmed COVID-19 cases are reported to CK Public Health throughout the day; to keep Chatham-Kent informed and up-to-date, we need time to gather investigation details, enter data into our information system, and ensure our information is accurate.
While the official numbers for today haven’t been released yet, public health says there have been over 100 new cases in Chatham-Kent in the last week.
“Due to increased community transmission and rapidly growing case counts across Ontario, the province-wide shutdown was initiated to help slow the spread of COVID-19; we must keep in mind that the people getting sick today have been exposed up to two weeks ago. With increased contacts leading up to and through the holiday period, we are going to continue to see daily increases in reported cases. We likely wont start to see the benefit of our collective action for another couple weeks.”
