The number of COVID-19 outbreaks in Chatham-Kent has jumped to seven.
CK Public Health reported on Tuesday afternoon the number of outbreaks increased by four over the holidays. Local health officials said a new outbreak was declared at Copper Terrace long term care home in Chatham on December 25, 2020 and three new workplace outbreaks were declared recently.
Meanwhile, the outbreaks at St. Anne Catholic School in Blenheim and Riverview Gardens long-term care home in Chatham continue. They were declared on December 20 and December 23 respectively. The fourth workplace outbreak was reported several days ago. All the workplaces in outbreak haven't been named because of privacy issues and they aren't accessible to the public.
Riverview Gardens had another employee test positive for COVID-19 on Monday. The home said this employee is self isolating and any close contacts are being notified, and will also self isolate. According to Riverview Gardens, the employee worked on different units and 2 East, 4 East, 4 West and 6 West have outbreak protocols in place as a result and CK Public Health has declared the full building in outbreak mode. Riverview officials added 3 East is now out of outbreak from an employee's prior positive test result and no residents have tested positive to date.
The health unit in Chatham-Kent said there are 17 new cases and nine recovered individuals for a total of 71 active cases, a jump of eight active cases from Monday. One local patient remains in the hospital with the virus and the death toll remains at three.
Community Living Chatham-Kent also reported on Tuesday that one employee has tested positive for COVID-19 and the facility is following direction from CK Public Health.
"The CLC-K family wishes this person the very best," read a tweet from the home.
Public health tracing revealed 44 individual cases were exposed due to close contact with other separate cases, 10 cases are listed as unknown exposure, and eight cases are still waiting on more information. The workplace outbreaks involve seven cases and the institutional outbreaks consist of two cases. The school outbreak involved one student case that has been resolved but the outbreak hasn't been officially declared over yet.