The number of people cleared of coronavirus in Waterloo Region continues to sit well behind the provincial average but the area’s top doctor does not see it as a cause for concern.

Waterloo Public Health announced that 18 more people were cleared of the virus on Wednesday, pushing the total number to 395. This means 45 per cent of the 871 cases in Waterloo Region have been cleared.

Meanwhile, 13,222 people in the province have recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, which is 70.6 per cent of 18,722 cases.

If you were to remove the Waterloo numbers from Ontario’s, that would push the percentage even higher.

Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, Waterloo’s Acting Medical Officer of Health, says there are several factors that have contributed to the disparity.

“Some of the areas in Ontario had their curve start earlier than us,” she explained Monday, pointing to the GTA as one example. Wang said that since they started seeing cases earlier, they would then start to see improvements sooner as well.

Wang says that another factor that has created the disparity is how the infected are resolved.

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“In order to find out they resolved, we connect with them, we find out how they how they are, things like that,” she explained. “We don’t always get people calling us back right away when they’re alright.

“We don’t check them off as resolved until we’ve confirmed their resolved.”

She said it was just a data entry issue and says people are getting better in the area.

“It’s just that for tracking purposes our rates are not up there along with the province’s at this point but eventually it’s all going to catch up,” Wang said.

“It’s not that people are not resolving here, it’s just a data entry-timeline thing.”

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