With the number of local cases remaining low, Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit is changing the way it reports confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Community Outreach and Public Relations Officer Stephanie Egelton said as of June 5 the health unit's website will now publish local COVID-19 updates at 2:30 p.m. between Monday and Friday, instead of at 12:30 p.m. The website will also no longer be updated over the weekend.
Egelton said the decision to adjust day-to-day online reporting of COVID-19 updates was a result of a decrease in new cases of the virus, and a reduction of health unit staff over the weekend. Egleton added the new format will include more information in a more detailed automated summary report.
Epidemiologist Laura Zettler said the institutional outbreaks section of the website refers to long term care homes, retirement homes, and hospitals. The demographics section breaks down the confirmed cases by gender, age, and urban and rural areas.
Zettler said the exposures section will detail how those infected were exposed to the virus, their current status, and how many are still active or have recovered.
"Sometimes a case may not have a travel history or we may not be able to link a case to another confirmed case or to an existing outbreak. So, we may categorize this case exposure as 'unknown,'" said Zettler. "This could indicate community-acquired but when there is very little evidence of community spread overall, we are reluctant to conclude that with certainty."
Zettler said CK Public Health will be adding more details in the future around case risk factors and other important epidemiological information.
The case severity and outcomes section will show what cases were ever hospitalized and if they were ever in the intensive care unit.
Zettler added that the testing numbers in that section are for Chatham-Kent residents only who have been reported to the health unit. She added those testing numbers reflect the number of residents tested and not the number of tests conducted. Those numbers don't include the mass testing recently done at the seven long term care facilities across Chatham-Kent. All of those results were negative.
"Depending on the provincial testing strategy moving forward and the public health unit's role in that, we will determine how we will need to change our reporting of indicators related to testing in the future," Zettler said.
CK Public Health reported a new case of COVID-19 in the community on Friday afternoon, which brings the total number of confirmed cases to 148 since mid-March. This latest case is traced back to travel, according to the health unit.
There are now seven active cases, four in the community and three at Greenhill Produce, which has been dealing with an outbreak since April 27. Six of the active cases are isolated and one remains in the hospital. The death toll in Chatham-Kent remains at one.