The health unit representing the City of Kawartha Lakes reports three new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus and 10 self-isolating cases late Wednesday afternoon.
According to the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge, District Health Unit update issued online at 4:40 p.m. March 25, the confirmed cases for which tests arrived on Tuesday include:
- a man in his 70s at Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay, who is self-isolating
- a woman in her 60s at Ross Memorial Hospital, who remains hospitalized
- a woman in her 80s at Ross Memorial Hospital, who remains hospitalized
Ten other cases reported on Tuesday are currently listed as self-isolating. They are all women in their 30s to 70s, according to the health unit.
That brings the total for the health unit’s jurisdiction to 25 confirmed cases of COVID-19 which includes five in Northumberland County and 20 in the City of Kawartha Lakes, of which one was a death. The health unit says a Kawartha Lakes man in his 80s with no travel or known contact history died of COVID-19 and pneumonia at the Lindsay hospital on Sunday.
Three of the Kawartha Lakes cases were confirmed last Friday at the Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon. They remain isolated at the long-term care home which is a 65-bed facility.
The health unit says when a respiratory outbreak was declared at the nursing home on March 18, routine respiratory virus testing and COVID-19 testing were done on three symptomatic residents. When their test results came back as positive on March 20, all staff reporting symptoms that worked at the facility were then tested.
“Under outbreak protocols, no further residents were tested as the three positive cases demonstrate the virus is already circulating amongst the residents,” Chandra Tremblay, the health unit’s manager of corporate services, told Global News Peterborough.
“Since March 20, we have had 10 confirmed cases of COVID-19 amongst the staff of Pinecrest that live within our health unit area,” she added.
Tremblay said there remain some staff who were tested and results are still pending.
“We do have three staff whose tests have come back negative and they are no longer having flu-like symptoms,” she said. “Any symptomatic staff are self-isolating and have been tested.”
The health unit says the nursing home is evidence of community transmission of COVID-19 and that cases are not just limited to travel.
On Wednesday morning, Peterborough Public Health confirmed an employee at the nursing home had contracted the disease. Because the woman is a resident of Peterborough, her case is under Peterborough Public Health which now reports seven confirmed cases in its jurisdiction.
More to come.
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