Two more long-term care resident deaths; backlog of test results persists
The Windsor-essex County Health Unit reported two additional deaths due to COVID-19 Wednesday while more than 1,000 residents await test results from an out-of-town lab.
A man in his 80s and a woman in her 90s, both residents of longterm care homes and with confirmed cases of the virus, passed away.
“I express my condolences and sympathies for the families,” said Dr. Wajid Ahmed, medical officer of health. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.”
Of the 57 local lives lost to COVID-19, 43 of them were residents of long-term care and retirement homes.
“Long-term care homes and retirement homes are considered high risk setting due to the vulnerable population they serve both in age and pre-existing medical conditions,” Ahmed said.
Outbreaks have been declared at two additional long-term care and retirement homes, bringing the number of facilities experiencing outbreaks to 10. The new outbreaks are occurring at Chartwell Oak Park Lasalle and Berkshire Care Centre. In both cases, one staff member and no residents have tested positive for COVID -19.
Although the health unit’s interviews with the affected staff members are ongoing, Ahmed said it is likely they contracted the disease through community spread.
“Beginning with the facilities in outbreak, Essex-windsor
EMS and Windsor-essex County Health Unit nurse practitioners have worked tirelessly to test staff and residents,” Ahmed said. “Despite an inconsistent supply of COVID-19 swabs for testing, the mass swabbing of long-term care home residents is still ongoing. I want to assure the community that despite these challenges, we are on track to complete the mass swabbing in a timely manner.”
In addition to Essex-windsor EMS, the health unit has partnered with Windsor Regional Hospital, Hotel-dieu Grace Healthcare and Erie Shores Healthcare to equip long-term care and retirement homes with personal protective equipment, staffing, and education as well as testing. The local homes have more than 5,000 residents and staff members, the health unit said.
More than 400 residents and staff at long-term care and retirement homes are being swabbed daily.
The number of COVID-19 cases
in Windsor-essex rose by nine on Wednesday for a total to 665. While 9,027 individuals have been swabbed for the virus, 1,343 of them are still waiting to learn whether or not they’ve been infected.
Members of the community at large can expect to wait six days or more for their COVID-19 test results, Ahmed said.
He estimated between 80 and 100 people are tested each day at Windsor Regional Hospital’s COVID-19 assessment centre, with a similar number of tests occurring at Erie Shores Healthcare’s assessment centre.
Swab processing for long-term care home residents, hospitalized patients, first responders, and health-care workers is prioritized, when labelled correctly, Ahmed said. The health unit receives those results more quickly than it does the results of members of the general community with mild symptoms.
When the lab in London that processes results for Windsor-essex reaches capacity, specimens are sent off to yet another lab, adding to result turnaround time. Ahmed said on Tuesday the health unit has no control over whether or not a lab facility capable of processing local COVID-19 test kits is established in the region.
“We have to be careful. As much as we want those results to be coming back to us in a timely manner, we also need to recognize what current technology and lab capacity exists,” Ahmed said. “Thirteen-hundred tests is definitely something that we are concerned about. We’d like to see those numbers go down quite significantly for our community.