The state of a severe coronavirus outbreak at a retirement home in Stratford, Ont., continued to worsen over the weekend, with health officials reporting Monday that another four residents had died, and another eight residents and two staff members had tested positive since Friday.
The outbreak at Cedarcroft Place, declared on Oct. 27, has led to the deaths of at least eight of the home’s residents, and has resulted in a case tally numbering 62, with about half of the home’s resident population infected along with about one-third of its staff.
As of Monday, 34 of the 44 resident cases remained active at the home, along with 13 of the 18 staff cases.
Health officials said that the four deaths reported over the weekend involved residents of the facility who had been hospitalized due to the virus.
“These are devastating losses, and we send our condolences to the families and friends of these residents,” the health unit said.
Since it was declared 20 days ago, the Cedarcroft outbreak has quickly become the worst outbreak to be seen in Huron and Perth by a large margin, according to health unit figures.
The second-worst outbreak, seen at Greenwood Court in Stratford in the spring, recorded 16 total cases and four resident deaths in the 42 days it was active.
In a bid to curb the further growth of the outbreak and ensure proper staffing levels, local health officials announced over the weekend that several residents who had tested positive would be temporarily transferred to local hospitals — including in Ingersoll, Goderich, Stratford, Wingham, and Woodstock. At least 10 had been moved as of Monday.
The decision is similar to one made earlier this year in Lambton County involving residents of Vision Nursing Home when that facility was undergoing a serious outbreak.
“Physicians who are working together with the Huron Perth pandemic leadership (triad) continue to assess and identify residents that may potentially be moved due to a combination of their status and the capacity at Cedarcroft,” said the region’s medical officer of health, Dr. Miriam Klassen, on Monday.
A third round of staff prevalence testing was also being carried out on Monday for those who have been negative for the virus and asymptomatic, she added.
In order to bring residents back, staffing at the facility would need to be stabilized, and the outbreak contained to a large extent.
The source of said outbreak remains unclear, according to Klassen.
“My best estimate is that somebody who was asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, and didn’t realize that they were capable of transmitting COVID, entered the home despite the screening protocols,” she said.
“Given the vulnerability of the population in Cedarcroft, with many of the residents having multiple co-morbidities, some of the residents receiving palliative care already prior to the outbreak, it wouldn’t take a very big dose for someone to get sick, and that can transmit quite easily amongst a closed population of elderly people with underlying medical conditions.”
The outbreak has overwhelmed the 85-suite facility, and has been extremely hard on those who live and work there, said Lily Goodman, COO with All Seniors Care, the company which operates Cedarcroft, on Sunday.
“Some of our residents have been with us for as many as 10 years, and this is their home. They joined us as a healthy retiree and have stayed with us as they’ve aged, and in many cases, they stay with us when they are in palliative care,” she said.
“It has been heartwarming to see this unprecedented response and cooperation,” she said of the work being done between the company and local public health and medical partners. “This has included providing us with much needed staffing, which is challenging during this outbreak.”
Dr. Klassen said Monday that the timeliness of some meal deliveries to residents had been delayed, and that the issue had been one of the reasons why officials at the facility had reached out for help with staffing.
Andrew Williams, President and CEO of Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance, said Sunday that they had redeployed staff from the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), as well as London Health Sciences Centre to the home.
Goodman noted the company had implemented a single-site working standard at the start of the pandemic, and boosted pay to keep staff members from working multiple jobs to keep the virus from being brought into the home from other workplaces, and vice versa.
Under provincial regulations, staff are not allowed to work in more than one health-care facility.
With the region also dealing with a small outbreak at a separate home in Perth East, the health unit recently issued new recommendations for long-term care and retirement homes in Huron and Perth that called for the ceasing of all indoor visits with residents by “general visitors.”
The recommendations also call on facilities to limit indoor visits with residents to one “essential visitor,” at a time, and to cease permitting residents to leave for “short-stay absences and temporary absences” except those required for health care.
Across the province, health care advocates and unions have sounded the alarm in recent weeks about the situation in the long-term care system, saying a staffing crisis still exists and crucial personal protective equipment is still not always available.
On Monday, Premier Doug Ford said that Ontario would increase testing in long-term care homes to pinpoint how the virus is entering the facilities, while Merrilee Fullerton, the province’s long-term care minister, said Queen’s Park would revamp criteria that would reduce access to homes in COVID-19 hot spots.
Public health units could also impose their own measures if they deem them necessary, she added, without specifying what those might be.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath accused the minister of ducking responsibility.
“It looks like she’s preparing to scapegoat public health departments as a result of the government’s failures,” Horwath said. “This government did nothing all summer long. They didn’t hire more PSWs, they didn’t bring in infection control specialists for each and every home.”
According to the province, 101 long-term care homes and 60 retirement homes in Ontario are experiencing an outbreak as of Sunday.
— With files from The Canadian Press