By Jenna Cocullo
Chatham-Kent Public Health officials confirmed one more resident tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of local cases to nine as of Thursday morning.
According to the CK Public Health website, the ninth C-K COVID-19 patient is a woman in her 20s. Exposure is through close contact, so it is being treated as travel related.
Dr. David Colby, C-K’s medical officer of health, explained that the World Health Organization classifies cases as imported, meaning a person got sick in their city but contracted the virus through travel; first degree, which is a case contracted locally through a person that has travelled; and community, meaning that there was no link to travel associated with the case.
So far Public Health has completed six of the local investigations and found that the cause of those Chatham-Kent cases were travel related.
Colby said they are still investigating the sources of two of the earlier cases, as there has been no link to travel established yet.
“I would love for all the cases to be travel related because they are easier to contain and track. It would mean there are no unknown factors around the community,” he said.
Colby suspects that things will still get worse before they get better, adding that Chatham-Kent’s “fairly small numbers,” combined with the lack of province- and nation-wide testing “does not tell the whole story” about the spread of the virus, as there is only capacity to test those that are highly suspected to have contracted the virus.
Out of the nine cases, one is currently resolved.
There was also an additional case tied to Chatham, from a worker in the Judy LaMarsh building, which statistically falls under Windsor’s jurisdiction because of the person’s residency.
CK Public Health has connected with close contacts to the individual(s) and they have begun their 14-day self-isolation.
