{"id":26676,"date":"2020-06-04T18:22:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26676"},"modified":"2020-06-11T23:36:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T03:36:42","slug":"region-declares-chartwell-outbreak-closed-but-urges-caution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/region-declares-chartwell-outbreak-closed-but-urges-caution\/","title":{"rendered":"Region declares Chartwell outbreak closed, but urges caution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The COVID-19 outbreak being fought by frontline workers\nat Chartwell Aurora (formally Resthaven) which has claimed the lives of 11\nresidents over the last two months, has been declared \u201cclosed\u201d by the Region of\nYork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of Tuesday, the virus has proved fatal for 14 Aurora\nresidents, with 2 of the deaths outside Chartwell attributed to local\ntransmission and 1 a travel-related case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest fatality reported by the Region is an\n87-year-old woman who lost her battle with COVID-19 at Southlake Regional\nHealth Centre on Sunday, May 31. A close contact case, symptoms set in on May\n19 and she tested positive on May 20, according to Patrick Casey, the Region\u2019s\nDirector of Corporate Communications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outbreak at the downtown Aurora long-term care\nresidence was first declared by the Region on April 10, and by the time they\ndowngraded the outbreak status on May 27, Chartwell Aurora was still dealing\nwith 3 active cases within its walls and that remained the case at press time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his Friday update, Dr. Karim Kurji, York Region\u2019s\nChief Medical Officer of Health, said long-term care outbreaks across the area\nwere declining but he urged vigilance going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFour-fifths of our homes that were in outbreak mode have\nnow had their outbreaks resolved,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, there are still some that\nare very challenging to have the outbreaks resolved. In addition, we have\nrecently seen two more homes that used to be in outbreak mode reappear with\noutbreaks. We are urging all staff at long-term care homes to get re-tested\nevery two weeks. We [are also] reviewing prevention and control practices\neverywhere in order to enforce these.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proactive testing continues to be a priority for Dr.\nKurji. Citing success stories coming out of New Zealand and South Korea in\ntheir efforts to control the virus, testing has been \u201cone of their fundamental\npillars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe mantra in some of these places has been \u2018test, trace\nand isolate,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWe are urging anyone with mild COVID-19-like symptoms\nto go for testing at all three hospital-based assessment centres (at Southlake\nRegional Health Centre, Mackenzie Health and Markham-Stouffville Hospital) and\nthey are all open during the weekends as well. We are urging folks that may be\ncontacts of cases, as well as workers who may have been in situations where\nworkplaces have got outbreaks, to definitely access testing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As active cases within long-term care decline, workplace\noutbreaks are on the rise, he cautioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWorkers tend to get it from the community and then one\ngiven worker may pass it to the next and then to the next. These workers tend\nto take it home to their families so you get household contacts. Some of the\nworkers work in multiple locations and if they happen to be infectious, they\nhappen to take it to those other locations. Sometimes, workers tend to carpool.\nSometimes workers from different workplaces carpool in the same car. If one of\nthem is infectious, it gets spread to other workplaces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we do in Public Health is to go into these places,\nobserve and give recommendations. Our recommendations may involve health\nscreening, ensuring the employees are wearing masks, [have] disinfection\npolicies, staggered lunch times, make sure they are giving good sick-time\npractices so people can be off for 14 days, amongst others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aurora has seen\n103 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 14 of these cases have proved fatal. At\npress time, there were 11 active cases within Aurora and 78 cases resolved. 55\ncases have taken place within Chartwell Aurora, 42 of which were amongst the\nresident community. 13 additional cases were reported among health care\nworkers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the remaining active cases within the Aurora community as a whole, 8 are related to local transmission, close contact and unknown exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The COVID-19 outbreak being fought by frontline workers at Chartwell Aurora (formally Resthaven) which has claimed the lives of 11 residents over the last two months, has been declared \u201cclosed\u201d by the Region of York. As of Tuesday, the virus has proved fatal for 14 Aurora residents, with 2 of the deaths outside Chartwell attributed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26676","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\/p3D2k4-6Wg","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 04:10:35","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\/26676","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=26676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}