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Grey Gables staff member tests positive for COVID-19; follow-up tests completed to confirm result – Owen Sound Sun Times

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Grey Gables long-term care home.
Rob Gowan/file photo


Rob Gowan / Rob Gowan/Sun Times

A staff member at Grey Gables in Markdale has tested positive for COVID-19, but public health is awaiting the results of follow-up tests before declaring an outbreak at the county-owned long-term care facility.

“This is mainly based on the asymptomatic testing and the less than optimal reliability of the test when it’s applied in asymptomatic people,” Grey-Bruce medical officer of health Dr. Ian Arra said in an interview Sunday.

The positive test result was received by public health Sunday, following universal testing at the long-term care facility. The sample from the first result will be retested and the staff member has also received a second and third test.

The results of those tests are expected Monday or Tuesday, Arra said, and an outbreak declaration will be made if the positive result is confirmed.

The staff member is in self-isolation at their home. The long-term care facility has been notified of the positive test result, as have all residents and staff.

“We’re taking this positive test result seriously. Physical distancing strategies and intense infection control protocols are already in place to prevent transmissions in the home,” Jennifer Cornell, Grey County’s director of long-term care, said in a statement.

“We appreciate public health’s guidance as we face this challenge and wait for the results of the second round of testing. We’re thankful all other tests of our Grey Gables residents and staff have been negative.”

All outbreak protocols, case management and contact-tracing activities are in place to ensure safety while public health awaits confirmation of the first test.

Ninety-five staff members at Grey Gables were tested for the novel coronavirus as part of the Ontario government-mandated universal testing of all residents and staff at long-term care homes. Ninety-four of those tests came back negative.

Sixty-eight residents were also tested, with 67 results coming back negative and one reported as invalid. That test is being redone.

Two people, including the Grey Gables staff member, tested positive for COVID-19 Sunday, according to the local health unit’s daily situation report, bringing the total number of cases so far in Grey-Bruce to 93. Seventy-seven of those cases have recovered.

Meanwhile, public health has announced that the COVID-19 outbreak at the Golden Dawn Senior Citizen Home in Lion’s Head has been officially declared over.

Arra made the announcement Saturday evening, saying there has been no further transmission past the first and only positive case at the long-term care facility.

“Congratulations to the Golden Dawn staff and the Grey Bruce Health Unit on the optimal case management and outbreak management that ensured full control of the outbreak. Full mark from me; job well done!” he said in an email to local media.

The outbreak at Golden Dawn was declared May 9 after an asymptomatic resident tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The case was detected after public health swabbed 44 residents and 60 staff at the facility, as part of the Ontario government-mandated universal testing of all residents and staff at long-term care homes in the province. The testing was completed May 5.

Two additional swabs were done and both came back negative, bringing the facility out of its outbreak status, according to a notice posted on the Golden Dawn website.

Only one long-term care/retirement home in Grey-Bruce remains under outbreak – Parkview Manor in Chesley. That outbreak was declared May 3 after universal swabbing at the facility was completed April 30. It was declared after one asymptomatic resident tested positive. A second test of the resident came back negative, public health said May 13.

No one is currently hospitalized in the region with a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus.

The Grey Bruce Health Unit has announced that it is expanding eligibility for COVID-19 testing. Testing is available for anyone exhibiting any new or worsening respiratory symptoms, regardless of the risk factors that were previously part of the testing criteria. Symptoms for COVID-19 are similar to the flu and other common respiratory infections and can range from mild to more severe.

These symptoms include, but are not limited to, fever, cough, difficulty breathing, muscle aches, headaches, difficulty swallowing, and lack of smell or taste.

These non-specific symptoms may also indicate other illnesses, and individuals who are experiencing new and worsening symptoms should be assessed for COVID-19 testing.

Members of the general public can go to any of the three assesment centres in Grey-Bruce to get a COVID-19 test. They are located at the hospitals in Owen Sound, Kincardine, and Hanover.

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Some Ontario docs now offering RSV shot to infants with Quebec rollout set for Nov.

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Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.

The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.

Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.

Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.

Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.

The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.

-With files from Nicole Ireland

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Polio is rising in Pakistan ahead of a new vaccination campaign

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.

Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.

The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.

Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.

The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.

The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.

Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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White House says health insurance needs to fully cover condoms, other over-the-counter birth control

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.

Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.

The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.

“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”

The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”

Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.

If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.

Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.

The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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