More than 90 per cent of residents at a Barrie, Ont. long-term care home have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Thursday.
At least 122 of 130 residents at Roberta Place Long-Term Care Home have been infected, the home said in a statement to CBC Toronto on Thursday.
Since the outbreak, 19 residents have died and 69 staff are infected.
Jeremy Taggart found out on Wednesday that his mother, Beryl Taggart, was one of the residents who had tested positive.
Taggart said only two weeks ago they were assured by the home that the outbreak would be contained.
“Now it’s just this heaving cesspool that’s just, ‘Dare go in there and you’re going to get COVID-19,’ I don’t understand,” he said.
Jeremy Taggart found out on Wednesday that his mother, Beryl Taggart, was one of the residents at the home who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. (CBC)
Taggart says his mother has not experienced any symptoms yet but he is frustrated with the communication from the home.
“Clearly, they’re overwhelmed. They’re not admitting they’re overwhelmed, I don’t know why. They’ve needed help for two weeks and it’s a disaster and here I am, just kind of sitting and waiting.”
On Thursday, local public health officials said there is cause for concern for the yet-to-be identified variant of COVID-19 at the home.
The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit said the unusually rapid spread of the virus at Roberta Place earlier this month prompted officials to start testing for a variant strain.
Fifty-five people at the nursing home became ill within 48 hours of the first COVID-19 case being identified, said Dr. Colin Lee, the unit’s associate medical officer of health.
The variant was identified in six cases and further results are expected in the coming days, the unit said.
“The problem is that this spreads so quickly to so many people that ultimately you’re going to have a higher chance of more people severely ill and [more] deaths,” Lee said.
‘I can only wish I could turn the clock back’
Lee told CBC Toronto that the first variant case appears to be in a staff member. He said the person did have close contact with someone who travelled outside the country.
“I can only wish I could turn the clock back if we had a vaccine a month before we went in on Saturday. I think this outbreak would be a lot less severe,” Lee said.
There’s a “very high probability” that the variant detected at the home is one of three known COVID-19 variants — strains from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil, said Lee.
Public health officials will be carrying out more testing at the home and will be trying to immunize as many residents and staff at the facility as possible, he said.
An earlier immunization effort saw only 21 residents vaccinated as most others were already infected with COVID-19, he said.
“We went in there on Saturday and immunized as many as we could,” he said.
Primary goal is to prevent further spread
The health unit is trying to reach all close contacts of those infected as quickly as possible so they can self-isolate if needed, said Lee.
“One of our primary goals right now is to prevent the spread further, as it gets into households and other hospitals,” Lee said.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical of health, said public health officials will also be stepping up infection prevention and control at the home.
Yaffe said the source of infection is still hard to determine as the outbreak at the home is still under investigation.
“At this point, we know a mutation is in there. The 501 mutation that’s associated with increased transmissibility … We don’t know which mutant it is, or which variant of concern,” she said.
“So it’s hard to say right now how widespread it is because we don’t even know exactly what it is.”
Fifty-five people at the nursing home became ill within 48 hours of the first COVID-19 case being identified, said Dr. Colin Lee, the local public health unit’s associate medical officer of health. Lee describes the spread as ‘tremendously rapid.’ (EVAN MITSUI)
Last week, the Canadian Red Cross was deployed to Roberta Place to help with the growing outbreak.
Orillia Soldiers Memorial Hospital, along with other local organizations, has also been asked to help manage it.
The Ministry of Long-Term Care said Thursday that it was working with its health partners to ensure staffing levels at the home were sufficient.
“This development underscores the need for everyone to stay home to stop the spread of COVID-19 and help protect our long-term care homes, especially as we find more evidence of new variants in our communities,” said spokeswoman Krystle Caputo.
Taggart says he wants Canadian Forces to come in to help his mother and other patients at the facility in the same way the military assisted a number of Ontario long-term care homes during the first wave of the pandemic.
“They had the military in the spring. What the hell is going on? Where are they? Anything! We need all hands on deck,” Taggart said.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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