Outbreak strikes seniors’ home where COVID-19 vaccinations were delayed
WATERLOO — Anxious families are facing a COVID-19 outbreak after public health rejected their pleas to vaccinate a Waterloo retirement home.
The outbreak declared on Feb. 16 has claimed the life of one resident at Court at Laurelwood. By Thursday the home was reporting a dozen more positive cases among residents and staff. Three people are hospitalized.
“Had this home been included in the first round of vaccinations, I doubt this would be happening,” said Marianne Kraemer, whose father resides at the home. “I am very, very, very upset about it.”
Regional public health delayed vaccinations at Laurelwood because the home is unregulated by the government, unlike some other retirement homes that public health chose to vaccinate.
Families argued that risks to seniors are the same and it is unfair to prioritize some types of retirement homes over others. Now their loved ones are falling ill as feared.
“What I thought was going to happen has now happened. So yes, it’s upsetting,” said Julie Robson, whose father resides at the home. “I think anyone in any sort of congregate setting should have been prioritized.”
Laurelwood’s corporate owner, Sienna Senior Living, is working with public health to contain the outbreak. Steps include more disinfection, feeding seniors in their rooms, frequent testing and having a nurse on location. A doctor from St. Mary’s General Hospital was to visit the home Friday.
Residents have been told that vaccinations are now scheduled for March 5 at the home.
Kraemer’s father, Fred von
Heyking, 97, has not tested positive for COVID. Two weeks before the outbreak started, von Heyking said: “I want (a shot) now because after the vaccination I would feel safer. I don’t want it just for myself but for all seniors. We are all at high risk.”
Robson pondered taking her father, Robert Robson, 84. out of Laurelwood after he tested negative. She now feels keeping him there is the right call because removing him might further delay his vaccination.
Governments have sent mixed messages about how they are prioritizing retirement homes for vaccination amid a slow vaccine rollout.
Regional public health says it put government-regulated homes ahead of unregulated homes because such homes provide higher levels of care to their residents who are deemed at higher risk.
“This was provincial direction because of very limited (vaccine) supply,” medical officer of health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang explained by email to a family member at another unregulated home.
However, a top provincial official recently told a media briefing that government regulation “wouldn’t be the driving factor in terms of which homes are getting vaccine.”