Community Outbreak And School Cases Tied To Blenheim Church
Jay Smith
More details are being released about the “community outbreak” of COVID-19 in Chatham-Kent.
Dr. David Colby, Chatham-Kent’s Medical Officer of Health, says of the recent cases, four have been traced to a place of worship in Blenheim.
In turn, those church-related cases are also connected to the confirmed cases in schools in Blenheim and Chatham.
“We’ve had to do extensive contact tracing but we haven’t found a lot of positive cases so far,” says Dr. Colby. “We’re still at 12 active cases (as of Thursday morning), which compared to elsewhere in the province, I think there would be a lot of jurisdictions that would trade places with us very readily.”
Dr. Colby says while there’s no concrete proof that the increase in cases is directly tied to Thanksgiving gatherings, the uptick certainly is within the right timeframe.
“We have seen an uptick this week which is within the time frame, but these cases are still under investigation and I can’t definitely tie one to a Thanksgiving event,” he adds. “But I do have a general feeling that the signals are going to be in that direction.”
Dr. Colby says with the help of school board officials and public health staff, the entire situation is something of a success story for contact tracing, even though it’s created a bit of a stir in the community.
