Saying it is not unique from other outbreaks the health unit has dealt with in the past, Windsor-Essex's medical officer of health is telling parents he is confident public health officials can handle a COVID-19 outbreak in schools.
As the start of the school year gets closer, there are more questions about how schools will handle the virus's spread.
Dr. Wajid Ahmed, the medical officer of health, told reporters Wednesday he has focused more on preventative measures because the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit has a lot of experience dealing with outbreaks of infectious disease.
"The plans to manage all of these outbreaks already exist," he said. "The plan for COVID will not be entirely different from what we've been doing."
He said the most common outbreak in schools now is chickenpox.
"We're public health. We deal with outbreaks all the time," said Ahmed. "If it happens, we have an outbreak in the school; we feel comfortable managing it -- it is not unique."
Should there be an outbreak in a classroom, Ahmed said tracing the close contacts of the infectious student will come first, and the entire class may be isolated.
"We will like to remove all those individuals in a timely manner to prevent any further spread to other classes or other grade schools," he explained.
Classrooms would undergo a deep cleaning before students return.
The health unit plans to release a tool kit for parents to prepare children for the start of school on September 8 on its website Wednesday afternoon.
There were nine new cases of COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex Wednesday. Of those, five are in the community, and four are healthcare workers. Three of those workers work at the same facility, currently experiencing an outbreak of the virus.
There are still 121 active cases in the region. Of the seven people who remain in the hospital, two are in intensive care.
The current total caseload is 2,402, and 2,210 of those are resolved.