A third death related to the novel coronavirus has been reported at the Bradford Valley Community Care nursing home, bringing the facility’s total number of cases to 31 — 24 in residents and seven in staff members.
The outbreak began at the Bradford, Ont., long-term care facility at the beginning of April.
“We’re actually testing everybody at that facility,” the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit’s medical officer of health, Charles Gardner, told reporters Wednesday.
“We have submitted tests for all of the residents associated with that facility and are working through testing all of the staff.”
According to Gardner, there’s well over 200 residents at Bradford Valley.
In a statement last week, Sienna Senior Living, the company that owns the Bradford long-term care home, said staff members are wearing surgical face masks and have their temperatures taken twice per shift.
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“The team at Bradford Valley is… highly skilled in infection control practice and are working closely with public health, who have confirmed that all proper precautions and directives are in place,” the company said.
There are some residents in the nursing home that are quite sick, including one that was admitted to hospital, Gardner said.
“I was hopeful that they would remain mild, but they’ve progressed in their severity,” he added.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a plan to fight COVID-19 in long-term care homes, which have become the epicentre of the virus, on Wednesday.
More than 140 residents have died in COVID-19 outbreaks in Ontario’s long-term care facilities.
On Wednesday, the province reported a total of 8,447 cases of the novel coronavirus, including 385 deaths.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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