Dylan Short , Lauren Boothby
POSTMEDIA
© Provided by Edmonton Journal Two residents of a Mill Woods care home have died amid a COVID-19 outbreak, the sixth time an outbreak has been declared at a facility run by Shepherd's Care in Edmonton.
Two residents of a Mill Woods care home have died amid a COVID-19 outbreak, the sixth time an outbreak has been declared at a facility run by Shepherd’s Care in Edmonton.
Twenty-four people, including 19 residents and five staff, have tested positive at Millwoods Long Term Care Centre on 28 Avenue NW, according to the company’s website . All affected residents live on the same floor. One staff member has recovered.
Tom McMillan, spokesman for Alberta Health, said two men, one in his 80s and another in his 90s, died at the facility.
Zachary Penner, spokesman for Shepherd’s Care Foundation, said staff follow health protocols and do not interact with other staff or residents on other floors. He attributed this most recent outbreak to a visitor.
“The message needs to go to the general public to take this pandemic seriously … as long as cases in the general public keep rising, we will unfortunately see outbreaks in care homes,” he wrote in a statement.
The company is looking to “COVID-proof” its facilities in the long-term care centre by upgrading to MERV-13 air filtration systems, potentially purchasing a new building, and renovating existing facilities to limit large common spaces and shared rooms.
Sabrina Atwal, spokeswoman for Alberta Health Services, said AHS is conducting contact-tracing, testing and monitoring staff, and are working on-site and virtually to help manage the outbreak.
At her Monday update, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said a man in his 60s from the Edmonton Zone and a man in his 70s in the Calgary Zone also died over the weekend.
The latest deaths bring the provincial total to 265.
Edmonton Catholic Schools (ECS) announced an additional case at H.E. Beriault Junior High School that is causing 49 people to isolate and has pushed the school into an outbreak. The school identified a previous case on Sept. 21 that saw 42 people enter isolation.
AHS defines a school outbreak as two or more cases confirmed within a 14-day period, where the individuals visited the school while infectious and multiple people have to self-isolate as a result.
ECS also announced a single case each at Cardinal Collins Mill Woods, Archbishop Joseph MacNeil, St. Catherine and St. Joseph over the weekend. Two cases were identified at Archbishop MacDonald.
Edmonton Public Schools announced four additional outbreaks Monday. Lillian Osborne School, Millwoods Christian School and Northmount School each had second positive cases confirmed while three individuals from Oliver School tested positive.
Single cases were identified at Kameyosek School, Kim Hung School and Allendale School.
There are active alerts or outbreaks at 113 schools across the province with 210 active cases among those schools. Forty-seven schools are under the outbreak designation while six are on the province’s watch list for having five or more cases. Twenty-two Edmonton schools fall under one or both of those categories.
About five per cent of schools in the province are under an alert or an outbreak, and the province has identified nine schools where in-school transmission is likely.
Two residents of a Mill Woods care home have died amid a COVID-19 outbreak, the sixth time an outbreak has been declared at a facility run by Shepherd’s Care in Edmonton.
Twenty-four people, including 19 residents and five staff, have tested positive at Millwoods Long Term Care Centre on 28 Avenue NW, according to the company’s website . All affected residents live on the same floor. One staff member has recovered.
Tom McMillan, spokesman for Alberta Health, said two men, one in his 80s and another in his 90s, died at the facility.
Zachary Penner, spokesman for Shepherd’s Care Foundation, said staff follow health protocols and do not interact with other staff or residents on other floors. He attributed this most recent outbreak to a visitor.
“The message needs to go to the general public to take this pandemic seriously … as long as cases in the general public keep rising, we will unfortunately see outbreaks in care homes,” he wrote in a statement.
The company is looking to “COVID-proof” its facilities in the long-term care centre by upgrading to MERV-13 air filtration systems, potentially purchasing a new building, and renovating existing facilities to limit large common spaces and shared rooms.
Sabrina Atwal, spokeswoman for Alberta Health Services, said AHS is conducting contact-tracing, testing and monitoring staff, and are working on-site and virtually to help manage the outbreak.
At her Monday update, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said a man in his 60s from the Edmonton Zone and a man in his 70s in the Calgary Zone also died over the weekend.
The latest deaths bring the provincial total to 265.
Edmonton Catholic Schools (ECS) announced an additional case at H.E. Beriault Junior High School that is causing 49 people to isolate and has pushed the school into an outbreak. The school identified a previous case on Sept. 21 that saw 42 people enter isolation.
AHS defines a school outbreak as two or more cases confirmed within a 14-day period, where the individuals visited the school while infectious and multiple people have to self-isolate as a result.
ECS also announced a single case each at Cardinal Collins Mill Woods, Archbishop Joseph MacNeil, St. Catherine and St. Joseph over the weekend. Two cases were identified at Archbishop MacDonald.
Edmonton Public Schools announced four additional outbreaks Monday. Lillian Osborne School, Millwoods Christian School and Northmount School each had second positive cases confirmed while three individuals from Oliver School tested positive.
Single cases were identified at Kameyosek School, Kim Hung School and Allendale School.
There are active alerts or outbreaks at 113 schools across the province with 210 active cases among those schools. Forty-seven schools are under the outbreak designation while six are on the province’s watch list for having five or more cases. Twenty-two Edmonton schools fall under one or both of those categories.
About five per cent of schools in the province are under an alert or an outbreak, and the province has identified nine schools where in-school transmission is likely.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw provides an update on COVID-19 on Sept. 28, 2020, from her home in Edmonton.
Making her Monday announcement from home while self-isolating with a sore throat, Hinshaw announced that 406 new cases of COVID-19 were identified in Alberta over the weekend.
Provincial labs identified 60 cases on Friday, 184 on Saturday and 162 cases on Sunday. There are currently 1,549 active cases in the province — including 779 in the Edmonton Zone, which continues to have the most cases of any region.
Alberta hospitals are currently treating 63 COVID-19 patients, 15 of whom are in intensive care.
Provincial labs reached a new milestone over the weekend as 1,001,638 Albertans have been tested for COVID-19 at least once. There have been 1,320,550 completed tests since the beginning of the pandemic.
Health Minister Tyler Shandro called the milestone a “remarkable accomplishment” for the province’s health-care system.
“We’ve developed the strongest and most dynamic testing program in the country,” said Shandro. “While other provinces have faced massive lineups, or consistently narrow testing criteria, Alberta has been a leader.”
Meanwhile, Hinshaw said taking a herd immunity approach to stop COVID-19 is not appropriate, as current estimates say between 50 and 70 per cent of people would need to become infected to be effective and the health-care system could become overrun.
“Serology studies in Canada have estimated that we are only at about one per cent or less of our population who has been infected,” said Hinshaw. “Adopting a herd immunity approach would have a serious and deadly impact on our population.”
Across the country, 153,125 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 9,268 related deaths have been confirmed, according to numbers from Health Canada. Globally there have been 33,034,598 confirmed cases and 996,342 deaths, the World Health Organization reports.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal
Making her Monday announcement from home while self-isolating with a sore throat, Hinshaw announced that 406 new cases of COVID-19 were identified in Alberta over the weekend.
Provincial labs identified 60 cases on Friday, 184 on Saturday and 162 cases on Sunday. There are currently 1,549 active cases in the province — including 779 in the Edmonton Zone, which continues to have the most cases of any region.
Alberta hospitals are currently treating 63 COVID-19 patients, 15 of whom are in intensive care.
Provincial labs reached a new milestone over the weekend as 1,001,638 Albertans have been tested for COVID-19 at least once. There have been 1,320,550 completed tests since the beginning of the pandemic.
Health Minister Tyler Shandro called the milestone a “remarkable accomplishment” for the province’s health-care system.
“We’ve developed the strongest and most dynamic testing program in the country,” said Shandro. “While other provinces have faced massive lineups, or consistently narrow testing criteria, Alberta has been a leader.”
Meanwhile, Hinshaw said taking a herd immunity approach to stop COVID-19 is not appropriate, as current estimates say between 50 and 70 per cent of people would need to become infected to be effective and the health-care system could become overrun.
“Serology studies in Canada have estimated that we are only at about one per cent or less of our population who has been infected,” said Hinshaw. “Adopting a herd immunity approach would have a serious and deadly impact on our population.”
Across the country, 153,125 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 9,268 related deaths have been confirmed, according to numbers from Health Canada. Globally there have been 33,034,598 confirmed cases and 996,342 deaths, the World Health Organization reports.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal
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