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A COVID-19 outbreak at Rockwood Terrace long-term care home in Durham declared just before Christmas is now over.
Health
COVID: outbreak at Rockwood Terrace declared over by health unit – Owen Sound Sun Times
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The Grey Bruce Health Unit declared the outbreak over on Friday. It started on Dec. 23.
Three local long-term care and retirement homes remain with COVID-19 outbreaks. They are Kelso Pines in Owen Sound, Maple Court in Walkerton and Grey Gables in Markdale.
A total of 40 Grey-Bruce residents have died from COVID-19.
Along with 30 deaths in Grey-Bruce, there has been one death of an area resident who acquired the infection and was treated outside the two counties, while nine residents acquired the infection locally and passed away outside Grey-Bruce.
There are currently six local residents hospitalized in Grey-Bruce due to the virus, while two more are hospitalized with COVID-19 outside the region, according to the health unit’s situation report for Friday.
A total of 451 cases have been reported in health-care workers living in the two counties, up 11 from Thursday’s report. There have been 323 reports of infection in healthcare workers in Grey-Bruce in 2022, up from just 128 at the end of 2021.
The health unit reported 32 new cases on Friday, but the total is not an accurate reflection of cases in the region due to the limits on who is eligible to be tested.
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The Grey Bruce Health Unit is warning residents not to rely on the results of rapid antigen tests.
“We discourage people from relying on the results of rapid antigen tests; if you’re sick, stay home whether you test positive or negative,” the health unit said in a media release issued Thursday. “We also discourage asymptomatic testing. If you choose to participate in this voluntary asymptomatic testing strategy (which we do not suggest), please be aware of the risks and challenges related to such testing.”
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The provincial government announced a plan this week to distribute 44 million free rapid COVID-19 test kids available to the public over the next two months.
The initiative, which began Wednesday, will see participating grocery stores and pharmacies across the province providing the tests to the general public for at-home use.
The Grey Bruce Health Unit said its recommendations for testing remain unchanged. The health unit said PCR testing is only appropriate if COVID-19-related symptoms are present and a person is eligible for PCR testing, or, if the health unit has informed a person they may be a close contact through someone who has COVID-19 based on an assessment made by public health.
The health unit said the rapid antigen tests being distributed are not reliable.
“The accuracy of the tests is a challenge. A negative test is not an indication of truly being negative, and a positive test is not a guarantee of the test being positive,” the health unit said. “A false positive may cause significant and unintended anxiety in families linked to the false positive. Self-isolation, inability to attend work, and fear/anxiety are real outcomes of a false positive . . . most concerning, a false negative can contribute to further spreading of the virus due to false reassurance . . . testing in people who have no symptoms increases the likelihood of false positives.”
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Grey Bruce Health Services said Friday it will begin to gradually resume elective surgeries and procedures.
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Such procedures and surgeries were postponed in early January across the province to preserve critical care and staff capacity as hospitalizations rose due to the COVID-19 wave fuelled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Surgeons’ offices have begun to call patients to rebook elective surgeries and procedures, GBHS said in its release. Patients are asked to wait for a call rather than call their physician’s office or the hospital at this time.
“We have been providing urgent and emergent surgeries throughout this pandemic, and we are now looking forward to rebooking appointments for elective surgeries and procedures, and ramping up our ambulatory care services,” said Gary Sims, GBHS president and CEO. “Thanks to high vaccination rates and the many sacrifices people have made to keep our communities safe, we are seeing fewer hospitalizations from COVID-19. We have the staff and capacity to begin resuming surgical services.”
The recently released provincial directive permits hospitals to return to 70 per cent of pre-COVID volumes of non-urgent surgeries and procedures. The resumption of full services will depend on several indicators, including the number of COVID-related hospitalizations, stability of staffing levels, and community transmission, GBHS said.
To maintain physical distancing, patients who are coming into the hospital for appointments are asked by GBHS to come alone unless support is required.
Earlier this week, restrictions on visitors to hospitals were eased. Inpatients may now have two visitors, and they must be the same two visitors throughout the patient’s hospital stay.
For more information on the new visitation or surgery guidelines at GBHS visit the hospital organization’s website at www.gbhs.on.ca.
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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.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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