Two new cases of COVID-19 were reported by CK Public Health on Thursday afternoon, bringing the active caseload to 14.
The cumulative total now sits at 385 total cases, with a death toll of three and no current hospitalizations.
Five of the active cases are connected to a community outbreak at a Blenheim church, confirmed Dr. David Colby, Chatham-Kent’s medical officer of health.
One active case is connected to a workplace outbreak and remains active.
No new school related cases were reported on Thursday, leaving the total at four, plus one school board service provider, reported earlier this week.
Colby said the community outbreak at the Blenheim church is tied to the cases at the school boards. The situation for the most part appears to be under control based on few positive results coming back.
“We’ve had to do extensive contact tracing, but we haven’t had a lot of positive changes so far. We’re still at 12 active cases which compared to what’s going on elsewhere in the province, I think there would be a lot of jurisdictions that would trade places, very readily,” Colby said at a press briefing Thursday morning before the two extra cases were reported.
Chatham-Kent’s latest round of active cases, after going almost two weeks with zero active, comes right after Thanksgiving weekend. Colby said that although the latest increase falls within the right timeframe, there is no way to be certain if Thanksgiving social gatherings brought COVID back into the community.
“We have seen an uptick this week which is within the timeframe, but these cases are still under investigation and I can’t definitely tie one to a Thanksgiving event. But I do have a general feeling that the signals are going to be in that direction.”
