Local health officials tour complex vaccination site

By Mark Ribble

LEAMINGTON — One year after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt, the Nature Fresh Farms Recreation Centre is serving as a mass vaccination site for the people of Essex County.

Last Wednesday, Leamington Mayor Hilda MacDonald, along with County Warden Gary McNamara and Windsor-Essex County Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Wajid Ahmed, got a tour of the site and met with the media afterward.

For Mayor MacDonald, the year seemed surreal and she expressed her emotions in seeing this ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’

“When I got the call that we may have to turn this complex into a temporary morgue last spring, I said to my husband that stuff just got real,” she said. “Thankfully we didn’t have to do that, but it was a real wake up call.”

Over the course of the year, as McNamara later pointed out, the region lost almost 400 people to COVID-19 and that total continues to slowly rise, as officials race to get vaccines into arms ahead of an expected third wave.

As of April 1 last year, the Windsor-Essex region had 92 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one resident had died. By April 28, there had been 581 confirmed cases and 43 deaths.

Those numbers continued to rise until about the month of June, when public health measures brought the curve under control. At one point during the summer and early fall months, Windsor Essex was sitting on under 90 deaths.

The second wave that occurred from November through February, escalated the numbers greatly, with over 13,000 confirmed cases and almost 400 deaths among the current numbers.

On the opposite side of the coin, 12,623 of those confirmed cases have been resolved — either by recovery or death. That does not take into consideration, the hundreds of COVID ‘long-haulers’, who have lingering debilitating issues months after their COVID experience.

The province indicates that the current variants of concern are responsible for about 42 per cent of Ontario’s current cases and those variants may spark a third wave.

The only things combatting a third wave are the social distancing we are doing and the race to get as many people vaccinated as possible.

Time will obviously tell, but local officials are optimistic that the current vaccination rollout will help immensely.

“It’s a good feeling,” said Theresa Marentette, Chief Executive Officer of Windsor-Essex County Health Unit. “But we’ve still got work to do.”

Dr. Ahmed himself, was cautiously optimistic that the vaccinations will bring the numbers down.

“We’ve already seen evidence in the long-term care and retirement homes, that the vaccine is helping,” he said. “We need to continue with the health measures to ensure we can get everyone vaccinated.”