Vision Nursing home sees six more resident cases

COVID-19 outbreaks at two Lambton long term care homes are still growing.

Village on the St. Clair is reporting two more cases, one resident and one staff member. Twenty-six residents and 11 staff members have now tested positive. Two people from the retirement home died last week.

Dr. Sudit Ranade, Lambton’s Medical Officer of Health, says there are some people at the home who are seriously ill.

“The challenge with setting like a retirement home or long term care is that in both, more people in that age group are vulnerable to severe disease and so we are experiencing some people there who do have severe disease, some people who might need medical assistance or even might need to be transferred to other settings for care.”

Six more residents at Vision Retirement Home in Sarnia have also tested positive for COVID-19 as have four more staff members. In total, 22 residents and six staff are COVID-19 positive.

At Twin Lakes Terrace, 16 residents are ill and four staff. Another staff member at Fairwinds Lodge has tested positive as well, with five residents and three staff members COVID-19 positive.

There are seven homes with COVID-19 outbreaks in Lambton. Several are receiving help from both public health and Bluewater Health.

Across the province today, there are 251 homes in outbreak with 1,441 residents COVID-19 positive. There were 17 long term care residents who died of COVID-19 yesterday.

Meantime, Dr. Barbara Yaffee said Thursday there is a plan coming to test workers in long term care three to four times a week with rapid testing. She didn’t give details when that might happen.

Dr. Dirk Huyer, coordinator of the provincial outbreak response, says the rapid testing is “not to diagnose COVID-19 but … to evaluate, to find the potential for someone who has it.

“It is being used in a number of long term care homes a number coming on in the coming days.”

The province has had access to rapid testing since November and ministry officials say some have gone to long term care homes. Ministry of Health officials have yet to say how many homes are using rapid testing to screen staff.

And Ontario’s Science Advisory Table said today in a brief that if all of Ontario’s long term care residents had been vaccinated by Jan. 31 instead of Feb. 15, it would have prevented 600 people from getting the virus and prevented the deaths of 115 others by the end of March.