Nearly a dozen Bluewater Health employees have tested positive for COVID-19.
Communications Chief Julia Oosterman said, as of Thursday afternoon, 11 hospital workers were confirmed to have the virus.
"It's, of course, an unfortunate happenstance," said Oosterman. "Our goal was zero, that would put us of course, you know, in a unique circumstance, no one else around the world has experienced that. But of course, our desire is that none of our staff are ever impacted by our work life and what happens at their day job. That being said, it is unfortunate, but anticipated."
Oosterman said COVID-19 knows no social, economic bounds and is in all parts of the population and that includes healthcare workers.
"To date, we have 11 employees, which have tested positive. Four of them, we believe, have contracted the virus in hospital while at work, and the remaining seven have likely contracted it while in the community. All of our workers are currently at home recovering. We know that over 80 per cent of the population who do get this, recover very well with no additional intervention needed, even higher than that, they will have mild to moderate symptoms. So we're doing very well," she said.
Lambton Public Health reported Thursday that the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 had increased by nine to 128 while the number of deaths remained at 11. Institutional outbreaks have been declared at Sarnia's Landmark Village retirement home, and most recently, at the county-run Meadowview Villa on Petrolia Line.
Medical officer of Health Doctor Sudit Ranade said determining whether the number of cases at Bluewater Health qualifies as an outbreak, requires more investigation which is ongoing.
"I don't know when we'll be able to say that for sure," said Ranade. "But certainly it's not as simple as saying 'there's a COVID case and therefore the hospital is an outbreak' because you expect there to be cases of COVID-19 there." -With files from Colin Gowdy
