WELLINGTON COUNTY – Another Wellington County resident has died, but COVID-19 case counts continue to drop in the county and across the region.
A Feb. 16 update from Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (WDGPH) showed there were 62 new cases reported on the long weekend (Feb. 12 to 15), 14 of those in Wellington.
The latest COVID-related death, the 27th in Wellington since the start of the pandemic, was a woman, aged 96, who died on Feb. 7. She was a long-term care resident at Caressant Care Arthur.
The facility has reported 57 resident cases, including 16 deaths, and 61 staff cases since an outbreak was declared there on Dec. 26.
The WDGPH weekend case count of 62 is the lowest recorded in the region since mid-November, even with the extra day. Active cases in the region are now at 167, down 23% from 217 one week ago. Active cases reached a high of 489 one month ago (Jan. 11).
Several regional COVID-19 indicators continue to trend in the right direction. For example, WDGPH’s latest case rate per 100,000 population is 39.2 and its test positivity rate is 1.8%.
Those rates – 45.6 and 3.6% respectively just one week ago – would qualify the WDGPH region for the province’s orange COVID-19 alert level. A few other indicators qualify the region for the green level, but it is expected WDGPH will remain in the red level at least until March 2 as the province is using two-week periods before making changes to its framework.
The trend has also been positive in Wellington County, which has one person hospitalized with COVID-19. The county recorded 14 new cases over the weekend and now has 27 active cases, down slightly from 31 one week ago and a significant improvement from three weeks ago (Jan. 25), when the county had a record-high 112 active cases.
The county’s seven-day average for daily cases, which is often used to indicate trends, is now 2.71, down significantly from 11.29 three weeks ago.
There are currently 29 active cases in Dufferin County and 106 in Guelph.
Active case counts by municipality are included in the table below.
Municipality-specific active COVID-19 cases counts as of Feb. 16, 2021. (WDGPH image)
Outbreaks
There are currently 13 facility outbreaks in the WDGPH region, including four in Wellington County:
- Caressant Care Fergus, one staff case, declared on Feb. 6;
- Eden House Care Facility in Guelph-Eramosa, one staff case, declared on Feb. 6;
- Caressant Care Arthur (long-term care), 57 residents (16 deaths) and 61 staff, declared on Dec. 26; and
- Palmerston and District Hospital, six residents (four deaths) and five staff, declared on Jan. 28.
