17 staff, patients positive in GNGH outbreaks
Niagara Health tracing path of transmission, adds safety measures
Thirteen patients and four staff at Greater Niagara General Hospital have tested positive for COVID-19 after two outbreaks were declared there since Friday.
“This is a very unfortunate situation,” Derek McNally, executive vice-president of clinical services and chief nursing executive for the Niagara Health hospital system, said in a website statement.
“We’re working to our fullest capacity to prevent further spread of this virus and protect the wellbeing of our patients, staff and physicians.”
The first outbreak was declared Friday, in the in-pa- tient Trillium unit at the Niagara Falls hospital. The second — confirmed Saturday night in in-patient Unit D — involved two staff members and seven patients.
McNally said Niagara Health’s infection prevention and control team is monitoring the situation, additional testing of staff and patients is being done, and staff are trying to trace the path of transmission of the virus.
Stronger precautions have been put in place, including caring for the affected patients in
one area, increased cleaning and more staff education.
“What I think is a little more concerning this time is the number of people who seem to be infected with this (second hospital) outbreak,” said Dr. Mustafa Hirji, Niagara Region’s acting medical officer of health.
“The initial person doesn’t seem to have been identified as early as we’d like, therefore it seems like there’s significant transmission.”
It was likely caused by a staff member who would have visited several rooms, he said.
Across Niagara, 10 new COVID-19 cases were reported Sunday, of which nine were linked to other known cases. Only one was through community transmission, Hirji said.
So far across the region, there have been 518 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to public health. Three hundred have been resolved, and there have been 48 deaths.
With warmer weather and a slight easing of restrictions on businesses — garden centres, car washes and car dealerships will all be allowed limited operations starting Monday — Hirji warned people to continue to use caution.
“That’s certainly a concern, that people will get too relaxed,” he said.
He added: “We absolutely do want to start lifting those restrictions, but we want to do it in a way where we don’t see much more circulation of the virus and it’s still something we’re able to contain.”
Meanwhile, when it comes to slowing the rate of new COVID-19 infections, Niagara is doing “quite well” compared to the rest of Ontario and Canada, Hirji said.
Acknowledging the pain the coronavirus has caused this year, seeing that rate slowing comes as a positive sign.
The Region’s health department has been tracking the number of days it takes Niagara to double its caseload of the coronavirus, using a rolling sevenday trajectory.
Each day, it drops the last day from the list and adds another. The higher the count, the better — that means it’s taking longer for the caseload to double.
Hirji said about two weeks ago it was taking roughly eight days for the number of confirmed cases in Niagara to double. Last week, it was in the 20-day range, by Friday it had risen to 31 days and on Sunday it was 35.
By comparison, he said, “I believe the latest number I’ve seen from the province was in the low 20s range, and I think nationally we are at 17 days.”
An outbreak can be declared even with only one confirmed case on site. In addition to GNGH, there are COVID-19 outbreaks at a Bethesda Community Services site in Lincoln and an in-patient unit at the St. Catharines hospital.
Long-term care homes with outbreaks are Lundy Manor in Niagara Falls, Henley House in St. Catharines, Woodlands of Sunset in Pelham, and Royal Rose Place and Seasons Retirement Community in Welland.