49 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Windsor-Essex, 558 cases today

The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit is reporting 49 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in our region, and another 558 cases have been confirmed though this number is an underestimate. 

As the surge of the Omicron variant continues and due to changes to testing eligibility and case and contact management, the health unit is cautioning that daily confirmed case counts will continue to be much lower than the "true number" of people dealing with the illness in our community. 

At this point, public health is assuming most cases are of the Omicron variant, and have virtually stopped recording those confirmed cases. 

"There is a delay, and it is our understanding that because it is presumed to be dominant variant that the actual screening process won't be occurring the same way as it has in the past," said Nicole Dupuis, CEO of WECHU, during a media briefing Thursday. 

"So we won't have that information to report or differentiate. "

Acting medical officer of health, Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, said he's still hopeful the province will provide a metric system as a new way to track the disease within communities, since older methods such as percent positivity rates or case rates are currently unreliable. 

Of the 49 hospitalized individuals locally, nine are in intensive care units in the region. 

According to its website, Windsor Regional Hospital is caring for 44 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19, 25 of whom are fully vaccinated, one is partially vaccinated, and 18 are unvaccinated. 

Nesathurai has stressed that while vaccines are extremely effective at preventing illness, many people who are immunocompromised or have comorbidities are more susceptible to the disease even if vaccinated, which is why preventing the spread of the virus is crucial to protecting the community. 

Hospitals across the entire southwest are near or at capacity with COVID-19 patients this week. 

WECHU is also reporting outbreaks at eight long-term care and retirement homes in the region:

Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcare is also under an outbreak.

Two mass vaccinations sites opened Wednesday, one in Leamington at the Nature Fresh Farms Recreation Centre and one at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare. Dupuis said both sites had positive first-day visits. 

Across Windsor-Essex, 75 per cent of the entire population is fully vaccinated — a percentage which includes those inelgibile for a vaccine.