A family gathering in the Collingwood/Blue Mountain area has resulted in the second COVID-19 community cluster in Windsor-Essex.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Wajid Ahmed says as of Wednesday there were 20 confirmed cases within the cluster.
He says 14 of the cases are in the age bracket of 20 to 29-years-old.
Dr. Ahmed says the gathering occurred in early September and from there virus was exposed after more family gatherings, a card game, trips to area restaurants and a cottage trip to Tobermory.
He says all the cases are considered symptomatic.
“Even when we are talking about someone who has a high risk exposure and some people may argue whether they are false positive or true positive,” says Dr. Ahmed. “The diagnostic technique that we have, that means they are positive and secondly we have a reason to believe that they had a high risk exposure and that’s why they’re positive.”
Dr. Ahmed says as of now the virus has not spread outside the group of family and friends.
“I think they’re all linked to at this time as family and friends and are limited to that setting,” says Dr. Ahmed. “Some of the other places that were involved, we don’t have any evidence for any transmission and those events are already classified as low risk events.”
He adds it’s hard to say but the health unit doesn’t believe the family was exposed to the virus in Windsor-Essex.
“What we believe is the exposure probably happened outside of Windsor-Essex but it’s always a tough one because the infection could have been occurred 14 days prior to anyone showing symptoms,” says Dr. Ahmed. “So we couldn’t link it to anyone here or any event here in Windsor.”
15 of the cases are males while five are females.
18 of the 20 cases are from Windsor while one is an Oldcastle resident and the other is an Amherstburg resident.[embedded content]
