COVID-19 found at Community Living
Two homes for adults with developmental disabilities hit by virus
COVID-19 outbreaks in two St. Catharines homes for adults with developmental disabilities have sickened at least one resident and as many as six staff, The Standard has learned.
An outbreak at a Community Living St. Catharines residence, home to four people, was declared Tuesday. At least 16 staff have to stay home in isolation for 14 days and replacement staff are being brought in to help the home.
Niagara’s acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji said the public health department did not announce the outbreak — as it has with six longterm-care facilities in the region — because the numbers are low and the department wants to protect the privacy of residents.
“It does not affect the same numbers of people as you find in long-term-care homes,” said Hirji, who confirmed an outbreak was declared.
Community Living chief executive officer Al Moreland said five staff working in one home, and one in another, tested positive for the virus. At least one resident also tested positive and that person’s housemates are being tested.
“It is rather unnerving for everyone,” said Moreland. Because the homes don’t function the same way as long-term-care facilities, Moreland said, Community Living has needed extra help from
Niagara’s public health department.
In addition to direct support for infection controls, he said Community Living established a dedicated hotline with the department for the agency’s staff.
Staff at the home — who spoke to The Standard on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak for Community Living — said they were told by public health on Tuesday to go home and self-isolate.
When the first resident exhibited symptoms at the end of last week, staff said, they received training on how to properly put on and take off personal project equipment. But by the start of this week, equipment supplies had run thin, including not having enough gowns for staff. However, Moreland said Community Living is just now getting supplies it ordered in January, including masks and gowns. He said it should have sufficient supplies.
He said the equipment is not only for staff but also residents, since they live in close quarters.
“So it means we have to take a little extra time and sensitivity so that (the residents) are not frightened by masks and gowns,” he said.
Moreland said having at least 16 workers self-isolating created a staffing issue. Some replacement staff and managers were brought in to help at the residences. However, they cannot move between the residences as an infection-control measure.
The cases at Community Living represent the latest local outbreak of COVID-19. The other known outbreaks are at long-term-care homes, where at least 40 residents with the virus has died.
There were 11 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Niagara Friday,
bringing the historical total to 494, most of them connected to the long-term care home outbreaks, Hirji said.
According to Hirji, 261 cases are resolved and there have been 46 deaths as of Friday.
That leaves 187 active cases — the lowest number in weeks. That figure has been falling steadily as the rate of new cases confirmed each day drops, and the number of people who have either recovered or died rises.
Hirji said he is closely watching the rate at which the number of local COVID-19 cases is projected to double. That projection has slowed from a brisk pace of doubling every eight days last week, to every 31 days as of Friday.
Hirji said the slowdown is a function of Niagara residents taking physical distancing and hand hygiene seriously, along with a gradual reduction in the number of new cases at longterm care homes, even though the outbreaks at three residences — Lundy Manor in Niagara Falls, and Seasons and Royal Rose in Welland — remain serious problems and Niagara’s pandemic hot spots.
He said the rate of doubling is a good indication of how fast the virus is spreading in Niagara. If that rate continues to rise over the next week, it will confirm what recent data has shown — the spread of the virus locally is slowing down considerably.
COVID-19 outbreak declared at Niagara Falls hospital
An outbreak of novel coronavirus at the Greater Niagara General Hospital has sickened one health-care worker and at least six patients in the in-patient Trillium Unit.
In a Friday afternoon news release, the hospital system said an investigation revealed the health-care worker was infected by another health-care worker “previously identified as a community-acquired COVID-19 case.”
The news release does not say if the second worker is employed at the hospital, nor what the connection between the two workers is.
The impacted unit is a complex care unit, for patients with chronic illnesses. The hospital has initiated testing of other staff on the unit and enhanced infection-control measures.
This is the first outbreak in a Niagara Health facility outside of St. Catharines. The St. Catharines hospital, where all local COVID-19 patients in need of hospitalization are treated, has had three outbreaks in patient units, two of which have been declared over.