Doctor Wassim Saad will not dispute lower COVID-19 numbers on Monday and Saturday are an improvement over weeks of daily case counts in the triple digits. However, he is not hedging his bets we are out of the woods.
The daily case counts in Windsor-Essex have been bouncing around the past number of days. There were 87 cases reported on Saturday and 270 on Sunday. Then on Monday, the Windsor Essex County Health Unit reported just 35 new cases. Another 173 were reported on Tuesday.
On the surface, the Chief of Staff at Windsor Regional Hospital admits a couple of days where the count is low looks like good news, until you look at the number of people being tested.
"I would feel a lot more comfortable and confident saying that we're turning the corner if the same number of people were being tested, but we're getting less positives," Doctor Wassim Saad said. "When you have half the people going in for testing and your numbers are down, you can't confidently say community transmission is actually down."
A week ago, almost 650 people were tested for the virus, but the numbers have dropped precipitously since then. On Sunday, just 300 people were swabbed at the hospital's two assessment centres.
Medical Officer of Health Doctor Wajid Ahmed did not have testing numbers for Monday when he was asked on Tuesday morning. Those figures are typically reported on Fridays.
The numbers are dropping provincewide too. According to the Provincial COVID-19 Diagnostics Network, over 75,000 tests were conducted on January 10. On Sunday, labs tested 40,301 swabs.
Saad is not sure why the number of people getting tested has dropped, but he has a few theories.
"If it's down because people are not having symptoms and they don't need to get tested, again, another very good sign," he explained. "But if it's down because people are reluctant to go for a test because they don't want to find out they are positive, or they don't want to contibute to a longer lockdown, or they're worried about a blame and shame game -- than that would be a completely different story."
Misinformation online about the accuracy of COVID-19 testing may also play a role.
"It used to be thought it was a very small group of people that wasn't really impacting what the majority were doing," Saad said. "Then you get into situations where you start to notice that it's starting to have an impact on how the majority of people are behaving, and that becomes a lot more worrisome."
As of Tuesday morning, Saad counted 54 patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19, a drop from last week too. Fifteen of those patients are in intensive care.
Windsor Regional Hospital has 50 ICU beds right now, and while 15 does not sound like resources are being taxed, he points out there are other non-COVID patients that require that level of care too. As a result, the units are just below full capacity.
So far, the hospital has attempted to retain capacity for new COVID-19 patients by transferring some patients to hospitals in Chatham-Kent and London.
Monday's announcement from the Ontario government of 500 more ICU beds in the province's hot spots is welcome news. It will add another 20 beds locally for a total of 70.
"Now, obviously that would not be in our ICUs where they are now," said Saad of the new beds. "They would have to be make-shift ICU beds outside of the critical care units currently, but they would still be staffed by critical care-trained nurses, and respiratory technicians, and our physicians."
