Employee at Ottawa-run long-term care home tests positive for coronavirus

A staff member in a city-run long-term care home is among the latest in Ottawa to test positive for the novel coronavirus.

Ottawa Public Health has identified 42 new lab-confirmed cases of the virus in the past day, putting the local number of confirmed cases at 899 as of Tuesday.

The local health unit reported that no one in Ottawa died in connection to the virus between Monday and Tuesday, leaving the city’s death toll during the COVID-19 pandemic at 25.

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Though the net number of ongoing outbreaks in institutions dropped by one to 18, the City of Ottawa confirmed late Monday that a staff member in a city-run long-term care facility has tested positive for the virus.

In a memo addressed to the mayor and members of council, city staff report that an employee at the Garry J. Armstrong Home tested positive for the virus and is in self-isolation without symptoms.

The home has since been classified as an ongoing outbreak.

The staff member last worked at the home on April 18 and Ottawa Public Health is following up to see who the employee in question might have come into contact with.

The memo states that the city has been “planning for this eventuality” and has followed additional preventive measures in light of the confirmed case, including testing the individual’s close contacts and providing personal protective equipment to other staff at the home.

Newly released data also reveals the concentration of Ottawa’s coronavirus cases in the city’s long-term care homes and retirement residences.

Ottawa Public Health data shows 227 of the 899 confirmed cases — more than a quarter of the total — are connected to residents or staff in the city’s long-term care facilities.

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Sixteen of the city’s 25 deaths related to the virus were patients in the city’s long-term care homes.

So far, no staff at the homes have died as a result of coronavirus complications.

The institutions hit the hardest are the Carlingview and Laurier manors, each of which has 43 lab-confirmed cases of the virus. The Montfort Long-Term Care Centre reports 39 cases while the Madonna Care Community has 35.