OTTAWA -- A spike in COVID-19 cases in Renfrew County is being linked to one small community in Whitewater region.
The Renfrew County and District Health Unit says there are 54 cases of COVID-19 in a Mennonite community consisting of 212 people.
"This community is very closely knit and they have a lot of communal activity," says Renfrew County’s Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Cushman. "So you can see what happens when COVID gets in there and into a community like this how rapidly it can spread."
The health unit has tested 106 of the 212 people in the community, saying not everyone in the community has been exposed to COVID-19. There are 17 tests with results yet to come back.
Dr. Cushman calls the 50 per cent positivity rates in the community staggering, rivalling long-term care facilities. The health unit says about 90 people are showing symptoms, but no one has had to be treated in hospital.
"We haven’t had anyone who has been really sick to this point, which is great news," says Cushman.
The Renfrew County and District Health Unit says a visitor from the Kitchener-Waterloo region brought the virus to the region. Dr. Cushman also said mask use within the community was “mixed”.
"The good news is that there’s not very much interaction with the outside community, with the rest of the county," says Cushman.
This recent outbreak caused Renfrew County's seven-day average of cases per 100,000 people to increase by 766.7 per cent since Nov. 24.
From Nov. 24 to 30, the county’s average number of cases per 100,000 people was 1.8. Between Nov. 30 and Dec. 6, that average rose to 15.6 cases per 100,000 people.
But Dr. Cushman says these numbers are not a fair representation of Renfrew County as a whole.
"We’ve got lots and lots of activity all within a sub-community within Renfrew County and District. But by and large our numbers are really good."
