Faculty members arrive at the main Windsor campus at St. Clair College as the province-wide strike continues on November 8, 2017. Photo by Mark Brown/Blackburn News.Faculty members arrive at the main Windsor campus at St. Clair College as the province-wide strike continues on November 8, 2017. Photo by Mark Brown/Blackburn News.
Windsor

Out-of-town students should consider self-isolating to protect new social circle

It is not a requirement, and Dr. Wajid Ahmed wants to stress out-of-town students are not required to do it, but he suggests if they want to protect their new circle of friends, they might want to self-isolate for two weeks.

Many University of Windsor students have already returned to the city, but students at St. Clair College will start their classes on Monday.

Many will be coming from other cities and towns in the province, and the Medical Officer of Health in Windsor-Essex said there is a sure-fire way they can build a new social circle here without exposing those people to the virus.

"Fourteen days. Anyone who is self-isolating, basically, they have broken that previous contact with the other group," he said. "Then you cut off your previous connection and you build a new connection."

Ahmed said he recommends it for those who suspect they may have been exposed to the virus.

"This just is a suggestion for people who want to be more proactive and responsible," he said.

Meanwhile, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit said there were just two new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. One case is under investigation, while the other person acquired it from close contact with a case that has been previously confirmed.

In his weekly summary, Ahmed told reporters 64 per cent of the new cases in the past week have been connected to a community cluster discovered over the past seven days.

He also said the transmission rate, or R0 rate, is now below the provincial and national averages at just 0.31. That means every one patient is resulting in 0.31 new cases.

The provincial daily case rate continues to rise. On Friday, the province reported 401 new cases, mostly in the Greater Toronto Area, the Ottawa region, and the Peel region.

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