Sarnia-Lambton's COVID-19 case count and death toll went up again Friday morning.
Lambton Public Health reported on its website at 9 a.m. that there are 63 confirmed cases now and seven deaths.
Lambton Medical Officer of Health Dr. Sudit Ranade told his daily media briefing at 11 a.m. that the latest death is again an elderly person and is not linked to the deadly outbreak at Sarnia's Landmark Village retirement home.
"We've had seven deaths which is one more than we were discussing yesterday and that was a person in their 90s who passed away recently and was positive for COVID-19," said Ranade. "That case is not linked to the cases in the facility that we've been describing earlier."
Four of the local deaths are from Landmark Village, and Dr. Ranade said there are 15 confirmed cases related to the facility, nine residents and six staff.
The health unit is summarizing cases by date and age as they come in.
Some Sarnia councillors were asking the health unit for more information on where cases are originating in the community, however, Dr. Ranade said the health unit is obligated to protect the personal health information of residents.
"What the primary concern is, is that if you were to bring enough information forward about an individual case, that people might be able to confirm by virtue of that information that somebody they suspect is a case, is actually a case. That would be a big problem because it would basically be like walking into a doctor's office and saying, tell me who your patients are and what diseases they have," he said.
At 8:30 a.m. Friday, Dr. Ranade told Sue Storr on CHOK (103.9 FM, 1070 AM) that they continue to track down close contacts of the positive cases.
He said they were investigating at least three potential workplace exposures.
"People who have spent a significant amount of time with someone who was symptomatic and later identified as a case, close contact is close in proximity and also a long period of time, so an hour or two or things like that. So what we're not looking at right now is people who have just maybe walked by somebody because we think that that kind of contact is sort of incidental and presents a really low risk."
Dr. Ranade also said with the pleasant spring weather upon us, in a place like Sarnia-Lambton where there isn't a high population density, we can probably go outside with our small household group and be two metres away from other people. He said what we can't do is join other larger social networks like walking and running clubs.
Bluewater Health reported Friday that there are 26 patients in hospital confirmed to have the virus, and 19 suspected of being positive with tests pending.
-With files from Sue Storr