Windsor-area outbreak ‘unprecedented’
Majority of farm workers who tested positive didn’t report any symptoms
COVID-19 has exploded among agri-farm workers outside Windsor, with almost 200 new cases on the weekend and public health units from London and elsewhere sending staff to help control the outbreaks.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit reported 87 more cases in farm workers Monday on top of 96 the previous day — both highs for the region and all at the same operation, which officials would not identify.
“It’s unprecedented. Nobody was expecting this high number,” medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed told a news conference Monday.
The cases accounted for almost 70 per cent of the 257 new infections reported Monday across Ontario by the Ministry of Health. It was a 44 per cent increase in infections from the previous day at a time when new cases have mostly been limited to fewer than 200 daily.
Five more cases were linked to a nail salon in Kingston, where 27 have now been infected.
Ahmed said the higher numbers in Essex County follow a testing blitz that began last week in an effort to get a better picture of outbreaks as six agri-farm operations in Kingsville and Leamington struggle with the highly contagious virus.
The towns on the north shore of Lake Erie were barred from Stage 2 business reopenings last week as Premier Doug Ford allowed restaurant patios, barber shops, hair salons to resume operations in the rest of Essex County and Windsor.
There are now more than 500 cases of COVID-19 in agri-farm workers in the lush agricultural region southeast of Windsor, which is a temporary home to about 8,000 migrant workers whose labour is supplemented by the hiring of local residents.
Officials have said the migrant workers from Mexico and other countries caught the virus here after being quarantined for 14 days upon arrival. Three have died: two in Essex County and one in Haldimand-Norfolk.
Organizations representing migrant workers have been sounding the alarm for weeks about the dangers on farms and called for better protections. Some farms and greenhouse operations employ hundreds of migrant workers, who live in bunkhouses and eat together.
Those close quarters contribute to the spread of COVID-19, which has infected about 1,000 of the temporary foreign workers.
The group Justice for Migrant Workers called Monday for “an immediate shutdown of the entire agricultural industry until every workplace is fully sanitized and safety measures are put in place to ensure that the workers are not working under risk to their life and health.” New Democrat MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex) accused Ford of ignoring concerns of migrant workers until the outbreaks reached crisis levels, saying “the warnings about the growing hot spots at farms and greenhouses have been loud and clear.”
Ahmed said “almost all workers” who have tested positive over the weekend did not report symptoms. Nurses, nurse practitioners and interpreters descended on the unidentified farm Monday to double check and help decide on next steps to contain the outbreak. Those steps could include temporarily shutting down the operation because so many of its 450 workers are infected.
Officials need to know “if they are truly asymptomatic or if they do have signs and symptoms and for whatever reason aren’t speaking up about them,” Health Minister Christine Elliott told a news conference in Toronto.
“There’s a chance that a good number of them may in fact be symptomatic,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate medical officer of health, noting an assessment must be made on how many other workers or contacts those who have tested positive could have exposed to COVID-19.
Ahmed said he was pleased to have help from Middlesex-London’s associate medical officer, two of his staff and about 10 workers seconded from other health units to do interviews to get “a better understanding” of the situation.
“It’s unmanageable for a single agency,” he told reporters, saying
“better control measures” are needed on farms and raising concerns that some workers are working on more than one farm.
Ford said the government is getting a list of “recruitment agencies” who are approaching farmers with prospective workers, calling some “fly-by-night” operators.
Under a new protocol issued last Wednesday, Ontario will allow farm workers who have tested positive for COVID-19 but are not showing symptoms to keep working in “clusters” as long as they work, live and eat away from workers who have tested negative. That was a compromise reached to help keep farms in operation, supplying food and to make sure crops such as cucumbers and peppers are planted and harvested. Yaffe said that protocol has not yet been enacted because it’s intended only for “small” clusters of workers.
Ahmed said he would not name the farm that has become a hot spot unless he determines it poses a risk of spreading COVID-19 to the general public.
By law, public health units are required to name nursing homes with outbreaks but not farms, which can be identified at the discretion of the local medical officer of health.
There were 23 new cases of COVID-19 in nursing-home residents and 20 in staff over the weekend as the number of outbreaks in long-term care fell by two to 55. To date, 1,809 nursinghome residents and staff have died from the virus.
The number of patients in hospital continued to decline, falling to 214 in Monday’s report from the Ministry of Health from 256 on Friday. There were 51 people in intensive care and 36 on ventilators to breathe, down 10 and five respectively from Friday.
Since January, COVID-19 has infected 36,962 Ontarians and killed 2,716, according to a Star compilation of data from health units at 5 p.m. Monday that found 232 new and probable cases and 10 more deaths in the previous 24 hours.