The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit got some love from Queen's Park for taking the initiative on random COVID-19 testing.
During his daily press briefing Thursday afternoon in Toronto, Premier Doug Ford made a point to congratulate the region and the health unit for the efforts in controlling the pandemic and ramping up testing. Ford singled out the unit's medical officer of health, Dr. Wajid Ahmed.
"I want to give a shout-out to Windsor," said Ford. "I want to give a shout-out to the medical officer of health, Dr. Ahmed. I want to say thank you for the great work you are doing."
Ford stated that the health unit conducted over 1,800 random drive-thru tests this week. Random testing sites were put together in Windsor, as well as in county locations like Kingsville and Essex.
"They worked with police, city staff, parks and recreation to organize road closures, and rerouting cars to allow drive-through testing on the side of the road," said Ford. "That's fantastic... the folks in Windsor, the people there, you made things happen."
Ford had also mentioned plans for a testing site to be set up near Chrysler's Windsor Assembly Plant.
The Ministry of Health reported that as of Thursday, over 737,000 people in Ontario were tested for coronavirus. On Tuesday alone, over 20,000 people got a test province-wide.
