Three more Chatham-Kent residents have been lost to COVID-19 over the last week.
The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit reported the new deaths on Wednesday, its weekly COVID-19 update. They are all men in their 70s, 80s, and 90s and bring the total number of COVID-19 deaths locally to 75 since the beginning of the pandemic.
The health unit also reported eight new outbreaks to bring the total number of outbreaks to 12. The largest outbreak is 11 cases at Riverview Gardens Long Term Care Home in Chatham. Chatham-Kent Health Alliance also has two outbreaks, one in the Continuing Care Unit with six cases and the other in the Medicine Unit with four cases. Blenheim Community Village Long Term Care Home has 10 cases. The rest of the new outbreaks are relatively small and are mostly in congregate living and group homes. An old outbreak at Copper Terrace Long Term Care Home in Chatham declared almost six weeks ago still has 68 cases listed.
Public health officials said there are three COVID-19 patients in the Chatham hospital, but none is in the ICU.
Meanwhile, the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit is embarking on the road to recovery as it tries to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror.
Director of Health Teresa Bendo told the Board of Health on Wednesday that COVID-19 response priorities will continue, but it's time to get public health staff back to their normal jobs to deliver all of the regular services the public expects, and get ready for emerging events. Many programs and projects came to a halt when staff were redeployed to support the COVID-19 response.
Bendo admits the organizational recovery will take a couple of years but CK Public Health will continue to balance the need for COVID-19 response with other important organizational and public health priorities.
"CK Public Health will continue to respond to the current COVID-19 situation. This response will include carrying out case and contact management and to providing COVID-19 vaccines. As time passes, CK Public Health’s response efforts will begin to ramp down. This will allow for the gradual shift in resources to recovery, while still carrying out the functions of responding," read the report. "Recovery will allow CK Public Health to restore its programs that have been put on pause, further adapt programs and services to meet community needs, learn from its experiences, and set the foundation for how to work within the new context of COVID-19."