Local health officials are keeping close tabs on a handful of long term care homes with an outbreak of the virus, including Fairfield Park in Wallaceburg.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Colby says that while the province doesn’t recommend sending vaccination teams into facilities dealing with an outbreak, the call is ultimately his to make.
“The definition of an outbreak in long term care is very tight, so any cases among staff would amount to an outbreak even if there was no transmission in the facility,” Dr. Colby says.
However, it may be some time yet before those at Fairfield Park can receive the COVID vaccine.
“Until that situation stabilizes, I don’t think there’s any point in going in to vaccinate the residents. The vaccine can’t be used as what would be called post-exposure prophylaxis,” Dr. Colby says. “In other words, the incubation period of the infection is shorter than the time it takes for the vaccine to kick in, you can’t just go in there and vaccinate people that have already been exposed in the hope that they are going to have their infection prevented by that intervention, it doesn’t work like that.”
The outbreak was first declared on January 10th with one positive case, and has now increased to 31, including both staff and residents.
The home has been receiving support from various other agencies, including the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
“Ontario Health, a number of months ago, identified that hospitals have a duty to support long term care homes in the event that they reach a point where they are requesting assistance,” CKHA CEO Lori Marshall says. “We’ve been providing infection prevention and control support to the home with a monthly visit, education, those sorts of things. In addition to that, on January 26th, representatives from multiple organizations came together because of the home’s current status and to identify what other supports might be required.”
Marshall says a team of five housekeeping staff, specifically hired to help out during the pandemic, have been redeployed to Fairview Park to support staff in the LTC facility.
The province recently announced more funding to help Fairfield Park through the pandemic. The facility is receiving just over $93,000 to increase prevention and containment efforts during the second wave of COVID-19.
