As we pen this, Chatham-Kent has topped 400 cases of COVID-19 so far this year.
It’s a milestone number, but it means little right now. Some might disagree.
Others would say the important number is the number of active cases.
And as of Monday afternoon, that was 26.
But that isn’t quite true either, unless you are a Blenheim and area resident and especially if you are a member of Word of Life Church in that community.
Dr. David Colby, Chatham-Kent’s medical officer of health, said the vast majority of our active cases come from an outbreak at that church.
We’ve been lucky to some extent, and diligent to another extent. For example, our major outbreaks have been mostly tied to specific locations or groups that aren’t typically spread throughout the municipality.
In late July and early August, an outbreak hit our Low German speaking community. By Aug. 14, we had more than 80 active cases, mostly tied to that community, before the numbers began a sharp decline.
Back in May, an outbreak hit Greenhill Produce, with the vast majority of cases being migrant workers employed there. It’s a pretty tight-knit group, and it only got tighter as about 100 cases got tied to the greenhouse operation. At its peak, we had nearly 50 active cases at one time in C-K.
But in all situations of our larger-scale outbreaks, the majority of cases were tied to a single reference point.
With the first two incidents, the outbreak was quickly traced and contained. This time around, it might not be quite as easy.
But ultimately, that’s partly up to all of us, especially those who have been in contact in some way, or possibly indirectly exposed to folks from the Blenheim church in question.
We just need to do our part to help contain this latest outbreak. And that means all of us washing our hands, sanitizing regularly, staying socially distanced and, yes, masking up where required.
We could point fingers and try to lay blame, but instead, let’s all do our part to help limit additional exposure.
Collectively, we can do this.
