There are now 35 active cases of COVID-19 in Chatham-Kent, as of Thursday afternoon’s update from Public Health.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Colby says the majority can be linked back to a church in Blenheim.
“There’s a certain number that’s associated with the church itself, but then if a workplace or another setting gets secondarily infected then that becomes a different outbreak,” Colby says. “Ultimately all cases are connected, some of this is just a matter of statistical record keeping.”
In terms of direct infections, 19 of the current cases are linked to a place of worship in Blenheim, 12 are close contact transmissions, 2 are connected to an outbreak in a congregate setting and 2 are still pending.
Colby says the church outbreak is a complicated one.
“Supposedly precautions were taken, but we do have a large number of cases associated with that environment, so obviously there was a breakdown in precautions somewhere along the line.”
Colby says almost all of the current cases of COVID-19 can be traced back to the church, including the recent blood donor clinic, school cases, and the recent congregate living outbreak.
There is still one active workplace outbreak in Chatham-Kent, not connected to the church situation. Some good news on that front as Dr Colby says he’s just waiting for some final test results before declaring that outbreak over.
