Coronavirus: Western reserves free campus-area hotel rooms for front-line medical workers

London’s Windemere Manor Hotel is back open for business, but the only clientele who will be staying there for the next month will be local medical professionals fighting the novel coronavirus.

Western University and its Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry have reserved 35 to 40 rooms at the campus-area hotel to provide, free of charge, to medical workers in the city who are on the front lines of the pandemic.

Windemere Manor Hotel, which is a tenant of Western’s Discovery Park, closed its doors to the public in mid-March because of the pandemic.

The goal, says Schulich’s acting dean, Dr. Davy Cheng, is to keep medical staff from having to decide whether to go home and potentially put their family’s lives at risk.

“They don’t want to go home sometimes because they have elderly parents or young kids… They don’t they don’t want to run the risk themselves.

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According to the London Health Sciences Centre, seven COVID-19 patients were being treated at University Hospital as of Tuesday, with four patients at Victoria Hospital. At both hospitals, two patients were in intensive care.

Those numbers are expected to increase as the pandemic continues, peaking in Canada and the U.S. “probably in mid-April to late April,” Cheng said.

“We can see the number every day, and the projection can be frightening in the next one week or two.”

As of Wednesday, 66 confirmed cases had been reported in London and Middlesex — 14 cases just that day.

“This is community spread now,” Cheng said. “What we really need everyone to do is to ensure that we keep the physical distancing, but I do want to encourage everybody to be socially active, virtually.

“We need to be distant, two metres apart, doing our part to relieve the spread.”

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Questions about COVID-19? Here are some things you need to know:

Health officials caution against all international travel. Returning travellers are legally obligated to self-isolate for 14 days, beginning March 26, in case they develop symptoms and to prevent spreading the virus to others. Some provinces and territories have also implemented additional recommendations or enforcement measures to ensure those returning to the area self-isolate.

Symptoms can include fever, cough and difficulty breathing — very similar to a cold or flu. Some people can develop a more severe illness. People most at risk of this include older adults and people with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease. If you develop symptoms, contact public health authorities.

To prevent the virus from spreading, experts recommend frequent handwashing and coughing into your sleeve. They also recommend minimizing contact with others, staying home as much as possible and maintaining a distance of two metres from other people if you go out.

For full COVID-19 coverage from Global News, click here.