The Windsor Essex County Health Unit is reporting 32 new cases of COVID-19, 31 of which are linked to the agri-farm sector.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Wajid Ahmed said with the number of cases the region has seen over the last few weeks, this number of cases is not a surprise.
"The cases that we are seeing right now are already identified and what we call epi-linked so they are not coming to us as new cases," said Dr. Ahmed. "We're basically uncovering a lot of the issues and challenges and all of those details in those farms and we'll continue to see that."
Dr. Ahmed said there are a number of ongoing actions behind the scenes to get a handle on the cases among the farmworkers.
"Some of the additional measures that are being put in place is the progressive restrictions that we are putting into our class action orders to these farm owners operators to address some of those ongoing issues. Accommodations and enforcement, those are some of the issues that we've been talking about for more than a month now and that continues to be a challenge," said Ahmed.
Ahmed said the mandatory mask policy for the community should also help reduce the community spread cases. The policy will be issued Tuesday to give residents an idea of what it will look like and when and where they need to wear masks. The policy will be implemented either Thursday or Friday to give people and businesses an opportunity to implement the order and residents an opportunity to acquire a mask if they still need one.
The health unit will resume daily media briefings on its Facebook page Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.
