CK Public Health has shared details about two of the three workplace outbreaks currently active across Chatham-Kent.
Stephanie Egelton, a spokesperson for the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit, said COVID-19 outbreaks have been declared at Taco Bell, located at 328 St. Clair Street in Chatham, and KFC, located at 720 Grand Avenue West in Chatham.
“We can confirm that there are three workplace outbreaks,” Egelton told the Sydenham Current.
“We can name two of them, as they are public facing business: KFC and Taco Bell.”
Egelton said case and contact tracing has been conducted and the investigation is ongoing.
“The confirmed cases had very low contact with members of the public,” Egelton said.
“The individuals were behind physical barriers, masking, ensuring workplace screening, healthy hand hygiene and indoor dining was not an option.”
Egelton said those who were in close contact with these individuals have been contacted and given guidance by public health officials.
“The locations are being very cooperative with public health to ensure the safety of their staff and the community, with the locations being closed voluntarily by store management,” Egelton added.
“We want to emphasize that unless you have been contacted by public health, you have NOT been in direct contact with these confirmed cases.”
Currently, there are six active cases relating to the three workplace outbreaks in Chatham-Kent, of Chatham-Kent residents, Egelton added.
“The first declared workplace outbreak (a non-public business) has had no further additional cases,” Egelton said.
Overall, there are now 32 active COVID-19 cases across Chatham-Kent, CK Public Health officials say.
One outbreak at a place of worship and one outbreak in a congregate setting remains active in Chatham-Kent.
15 of the active cases are linked to close contact, nine are pending more information, six are linked to workplace outbreaks, one is linked to an outbreak in a community setting and one is unknown.
The total number of cases in Chatham-Kent sits at 466.
CK Public Health officials say one person is currently hospitalized with COVID-19 from Chatham-Kent.
To date, 431 people have recovered from the virus in Chatham-Kent, while three people have died.
A total of 39,614 tests for the virus have been completed to date.
CK Public Health announced on Friday that Chatham-Kent’s status under the ‘Keeping Ontario Safe and Open’ framework remains unchanged for the time being.
“The Province of Ontario has announced that Chatham-Kent Public Health will be remaining in the ‘Green-Prevent’ tier of the ‘Keeping Ontario Safe and Open framework,” CK Public Health officials said on social media on Friday, November 13, 2020.
“While we have not been moved to other ‘colours’ at this time, this is NOT the time to relax the hard work that CK has done to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
CK Public Health officials are reminding the public to continue to:
To view the full ‘current situation’ page from CK Public Health, click here.
For more information about COVID-19, residents are asked to visit
http://www.ckpublichealth.com/covid19 or call the CK Public Health COVID-19 intake line at 519-355-1071 ex. 1900.
