{"id":26368,"date":"2020-04-16T15:08:17","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26368"},"modified":"2020-04-23T17:44:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T21:44:52","slug":"long-term-care-homes-now-the-frontline-of-covid-19-fight-premier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/long-term-care-homes-now-the-frontline-of-covid-19-fight-premier\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-term care homes now the frontline of COVID-19 fight: Premier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Long term care homes are now at the \u201cfrontline\u201d of\nOntario\u2019s COVID-19 fight, according to Premier Doug Ford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Ford spoke to significant virus outbreaks at nearly 100 long-term care homes across the Province, including Chartwell Aurora (formerly Resthaven), in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, where he also confirmed students would not be returning to classrooms on May 4 as previously announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the fight of our lives right now and the enemy\nis ruthless,\u201d said Mr. Ford. \u201cIt preys on our seniors and the most vulnerable\nand the reality is despite our best efforts, we\u2019re dealing with a wildfire at\nour long-term care homes right now. This is extremely difficult on people and\nfamilies. Families are separated from their loved ones right now and people are\ndying. My heart breaks for those who have lost their loved ones at long-term\ncare homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe sad truth is our long-term care homes are quickly\nturning into the frontline in the fight against this virus. My top priority\nright now is getting the troops and resources needed at this front. We\u2019re going\nthrough everything we have at our long-term care homes and tomorrow (Wednesday,\nApril 15) we will launch an enhanced action plan to fight COVID-19 in long-term\ncare homes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan, he said, will include more support and more\nresources where they are needed the most. Ontario needs to deploy \u201cevery\navailable resource\u201d to long-term care homes, including working with hospitals\nto address capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThanks to our collective efforts, we have not seen the\nsurge in our hospitals that we were so worried about,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a result,\nwe have capacity within our health sector and I want available resources from\nour health system to be redeployed to those homes where there is a serious\noutbreak. We need to get hospital-based teams to help long-term care staff\nmanage these outbreaks and I want to see specialized teams deployed into\nlong-term care homes when there is a serious outbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Province, he added, would be issuing a new emergency\norder ensuring every employee in long-term care homes will only be able to work\nin one residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, York Region Public Health added Chartwell\nAurora to the list of long-term care homes experiencing an outbreak of\nCOVID-19. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional outbreaks have also been reported at Bethany\nLodge, Eagle Terrace Long Term Care Home, Kristus Darzs Latvian Home, MacKenzie\nPlace Long Term Care, Markhaven Home for Seniors, Southlake Residential Care Village,\nSunrise of Unionville \u2013 Transitional Care Unit, Villa Colombo Vaughan, Villa\nLeonardo Gambin, and Yee Hong Ho Lai Oi Wan Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Tuesday afternoon, as the Ontario Legislature met to\nextend the Province\u2019s State of Emergency for a further 28 days, the number of\nAurora cases of COVID-19 continued to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At press time, York Region Public Health reported a total\nof 36 confirmed cases among Aurora residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of these 36 cases, 30 are active, five are reported as\nresolved, with one fatality. One case involves a healthcare worker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the education front, Premier Ford confirmed that\ndespite an announcement made nearly two weeks ago, students across Ontario\nwould not return to classrooms on May 4 as planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStudents will not be going back on May 4,\u201d he said.\n\u201cThat does not mean the year is cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More details on continued school closures would be announced by the Ministry of Education \u201cin the next couple of days,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long term care homes are now at the \u201cfrontline\u201d of Ontario\u2019s COVID-19 fight, according to Premier Doug Ford. Mr. Ford spoke to significant virus outbreaks at nearly 100 long-term care homes across the Province, including Chartwell Aurora (formerly Resthaven), in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, where he also confirmed students would not be returning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Ri","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 05:29:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}