The Saskatchewan Health Authority has declared the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the La Loche Health Centre as over.
On Saturday, medical health officer Dr. Rim Zayed declared the outbreak over after 28 days had passed without a new positive case of the novel coronavirus in the long-term care facility. The outbreak was originally declared on April 17.
Two residents of the home died as a result of the virus.
On April 26, Joseph Pierre Sylvestre, 83, was the first long-term care patient to die from COVID-19 in Saskatchewan. He was the fifth person to die from COVID-19 in Saskatchewan.
Two days later, a second long-term care patient died in La Loche. Agnes McDonald, 85, was the sixth COVID-19 death in the province.
While the outbreak has been declared over, health officials say community precautions in La Loche remain in place to prevent the spread of the virus.
COVID-19 has hit La Loche the hardest in Saskatchewan, with 154 confirmed cases in the area as of Friday evening. Over 60 per cent of the province’s active cases are in La Loche, a Dene village of 2,800 people, about 600 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon. The community has seen 48 recoveries with 106 cases remaining active.
Health officials say they continue to perform door-to-door testing alongside mobile testing and aggressive contact tracing.
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