Amid rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the municipality, Chatham-Kent’s public health officials are scaling back how often they provide information on the virus.
Chatham-Kent Public Health said it will only provide COVID-19 surveillance reports for the municipality once per week beginning next week. Each Wednesday, the COVID-19 surveillance report will shift to capturing the most recent week when reporting on cases and outbreaks.
The health unit previously reduced its updates from five days per week to three in early February, due to the reduced eligibility for PCR testing and the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
“Lab-confirmed cases are still an underestimate of the true level of infection in Chatham-Kent, and monitoring trends over time across all sources of surveillance data continues to be an important focus through this wave,” the health unit said in a news release. “CK Public Health will continue to keep the media and public updated of important trends and aware of any increased local risk through our various communication channels.”
Public health officials acknowledged that Chatham-Kent has continued to see increased COVID-19 activity, with the latest update on Wednesday reporting 93 new high-risk cases. The seven-day average also increased to 39 new cases per day.
“Levels should start to decrease in coming weeks, as CK has lagged behind the overall provincial trend,” the health unit said.
The province has reported that COVID-related hospitalizations in Ontario are up 16 per cent in the last week, which is the highest level since mid-February.
