Sarnia-Lambton's weekly COVID-19 incidence rate has increased significantly.
The number of cases per 100,000 population the week of February 28 to March 6 was 102, up from 58 the week before. The positivity rate went up to 3.1 per cent from 1.7 per cent.
Lambton Medical Officer of Health Dr. Sudit Ranade told a media briefing Wednesday afternoon that the numbers are very concerning.
"So now we are actually at over a hundred cases per one hundred thousand people if you look at the data for the last week," said Ranade. "That's incredibly concerning, our positivity rate of cases is 3.1 per cent."
Lambton County remains at the Red-Control level in the response framework with the results of the province's latest review expected Friday.
Dr. Ranade said the province will take the latest numbers into consideration when deciding whether to elevate Lambton to Grey-Lockdown.
"When you look at the other pieces to the response framework, public health capacity to do contact tracing is okay right now, it looks like hospital capacity is also okay right now, so those aren't going to be the deciding factors. It's really about the concern around the increased numbers of cases and the potential for the spread of variants of concern."
Lambton Public Health reported 13 new confirmed cases Wednesday for a total of 2,272, resolved cases increased by 17 to 2,089, lowering the active case count by four to 137.
There are two more institutional, school and workplace outbreaks for a total of eight. An outbreak was declared Tuesday at Sarnia's Sacred Heart School where one staff member and one student have tested positive. One class is closed but the school is open. The public school board has at least one positive student or staff case linked to 15 Lambton schools now, up from 13 on Monday.
Bluewater Health still has four positive patients in hospital.
To date, 8,845 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to local residents, 707 of those are second shots.
A vaccination clinic opened Tuesday at Kettle and Stony Point as the First Nation tries to control an outbreak.