Control measures are in place and testing is being done at two long-term care homes in Barrie after the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit declared COVID-19 outbreaks at the facilities today.
IOOF Seniors Homes (Odd Fellow and Rebekah Home), located at 10 Brooks St., and Woods Park Care Centre, at 110 Lillian Cres., are now listed as facilities in the city with outbreaks.
One staff member from each Barrie facility has tested positive for the virus.
Residents and staff are now being tested for the coronavirus.
Dr. Charles Gardner, the region's medical officer of health, provided an update Wednesday afternoon and confirmed that everyone at the two long-term care homes will be tested.
“Based on the direction from the province, we are going to be working through testing the residents and staff throughout those facilities,” said Gardner. “It will take some time to do, of course, but we’ll be doing that.”
Gardner said the health unit will be working with partner agencies, and the facilities themselves, on how to logistically accomplish all the testing.
The IOOF facility has 167 residents, while Woods Park has 170, according to Gardner.
At both the IOOF and Woods Park facilities, Gardner said the proper control measures and precations are in place.
The Woods Park facility is operated by Sienna Senior Living, which also runs Spencer House in Orillia and the Bradford Valley Care Community.
Bradford Valley also has a declared outbreak. As of Wednesday, it has 40 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including both residents and staff members. New cases announced today included the deaths of three residents, all women in their 90s.
"There were among those who were quite ill," Gardner said.
That brings the death toll at Bradford Valley to seven people.
Spencer House is no longer classified as an outbreak.
Although Gardner could not confirm if the virus is being spread from location to location, he did say that the province no longer allowing people to work at multiple facilities.
“The province had put a moratorium on work between long-term care facilities in the recent past,” he said. “I don’t actually have information at this point about whether or not these individuals had worked in another facility.”
