Chatham-Kent's Medical Officer of Health has some good news for anyone who may have been exposed to a positive case of COVID-19 while donating blood at a clinic in Chatham last month.
Dr. David Colby said their 14-day quarantine ends today, Tuesday, November 3.
"That will be 150 people that are out of precautionary isolation," said Dr. Colby. "We don't consider those active cases unless they actually come down with the infection, and none of them have. So we're very, very happy about that."
Overall, Dr. Colby is also very pleased with how Chatham-Kent is doing overall.
"The number of active cases dropped by a considerable number. We have 27 active right now, which are confirmed positives," said Dr. Colby. "Two of them are in hospital, and I heard that one of them is well enough, and may have been discharged already."
However, an update on the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit's website at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday showed that the number of active cases in the community has gone down to 25 as two cases were marked as resolved. No new cases were reported on Tuesday and there are currently no positive cases in the hospital.
Meanwhile, public health officials doing contact tracing for positive cases are finding the number of contacts is going up.
"That can account for an increased number of infections," said Dr. Colby. "As people get more and more exposures to different people, the likelihood of getting infection increases. But also the amount of work tracking down all their contact, getting them isolated, it's incredible."
Dr. Colby added that while there have been some cases of COVID-19 in schools, it hasn't spread thanks to the cohorts and the proactive measures that have been taken.
"We haven't had any transmission in the school environment, so this is a very successful strategy, we're very happy about that," said Dr. Colby. "It's unfortunate when people get isolated, but that's the precaution we need to take to stop this from accelerating through the community."
Walpole Island First Nation reported one new case of COVID-19 on Tuesday, it's also the only active case. The First Nation has reported a total of 16 cases and one death related to the novel coronavirus.