Retirement home outbreaks concering while overall numbers dropping – Oshawa reporting one more COVID death

By

Published January 20, 2022 at 3:50 pm

Outbreaks at long-term care homes and retirement residences in Durham Region continue to be a concern while overall new case numbers in the region are dropping.

Another area of worry is the death count, with an Oshawa resident added to that total yesterday. It is the fourth death in Durham in the past six days and brings the number since the pandemic was declared to 401, pending any further adjustments from Durham Health.

There were 283 new cases of the COVID-19 virus reported Wednesday, down seven (or 19, depending on which figure supplied by Durham is the correct one) from the previous day. The number of institutional outbreaks is also down, from 36 to 35, but the number of people affected continues to skyrocket from 174 Tuesday to 201 yesterday.

There are now 36 residents and staff at Hillsdale Estates in Oshawa – where eight residents died late last year – self-isolating. That’s up four from the previous day, while two residents were added to the ‘resolved’ list. Bay Ridges saw their number jump from 16 to 22 yesterday while Lakeridge Health Whitby went from seven people isolating to 17.

Other major outbreaks are at Glen Hill Strathaven (27) and Lakeridge Health Oshawa – which now has six different outbreaks involving 21 people – as well as Orchard Villa (13), Hillsdale Terraces (11) and Fairview Lodge (11).

Lakeridge Health has not yet updated its hospitalization numbers from yesterday. As of Wednesday, there were 187 people in hospital with the virus and 14 in ICU and 43 “under investigation.”

There is one remaining workplace outbreak in the agricultural sector.

insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising