Local COVID-19 death rate eclipses provincial figure

Discrepancy attributed to high number of seniors in Windsor and Essex County

A centenarian who tested positive for COVID -19 has become the oldest local resident to die from the virus.

The woman in her 100s was a resident of a long-term care or retirement home. She died on Thursday, the Windsor-essex County Health Unit reported during its end-ofweek epidemic data summary on Friday.

“I would like to express my sympathies to the family for their loss, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family,” said Dr. Wajid Ahmed, medical officer of health.

The community has lost 8.5 per cent of those with confirmed cases of COVID-19. Provincially, the disease fatality rate is a lower 6.7 per cent. The region’s rate of transmission is also significantly higher than the Ontario average (156 people per 100,000 versus 128 per 100,000).

Ahmed attributed the discrepancy to the high number of seniors living in Windsor and Essex County. Those age 65 and older make up roughly 18 per cent of the local population, he said, adding that a significant portion of them reside in hard-hit long-term care and retirement homes. In Ontario, seniors compose 16 per cent of the population.

The local death rate among those who test positive for the virus within long-term care and retirement homes is a much higher 15.6 per cent — 44 out of 57 deaths in the region have occurred among residents of the facilities.

As of Friday morning, there were 685 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Windsor-essex, up 11 from Thursday. Of those, 252 people have completely recovered and 58 have died.

Since the second or third week of April, the rate of symptom onset detected in the region has declined and appears to be “moving in the right direction,” Ahmed said.

The date individuals begin to show symptoms of the disease better indicates when infection and transmission happened than the date an individual tests positive for the virus.

“It is very likely we have passed our peak with respect to symptom onset,” he said.

The number of local COVID-19 tests coming back positive continues to decrease in large part because of the mass-testing going on at long-term care and retirement homes. At seven facilities where more than 900 residents and 400 staff have been swabbed, those with symptoms were more likely to test positive than those without — 7.2 per cent of symptomatic residents and 11 per cent of symptomatic staff had confirmed cases. Asymptomatic residents had nearly four per cent of cases, and asymptomatic staff had one per cent.

“The majority of these individuals are old and frail and they may not exhibit overt symptoms,” Ahmed said. “Some of them may already have some of these mild conditions that can mask the symptoms of COVID-19.”

Most new local cases of COVID-19 are among individuals who contracted it from a close contact who previously tested positive, Ahmed said.

At the pandemic’s outset, outof-country travellers — most of them health-care workers — were mainly affected, with an increase in community transmission in earlyto mid-april.

“If we track down most of the cases to close contact, that means we are reducing the community spread,” he said. “If you look at the cases from the last few weeks, most of the new cases are happening in close contacts, which is a good thing from a public health control perspective.”

The majority of these individuals are old and frail and they may not exhibit overt symptoms.