Officials at the Health Alliance remain on alert with two COVID outbreaks at the Chatham hospital.
CEO Lori Marshall says while the numbers are quite low with two affected in the Dialysis unit and three in lab services, there is still some concern.
“The numbers of individuals are very small in terms of staff and patients that have been involved in each of those,” Marshall says. “We also have heard there’s the potential for the dialysis unit outbreak to be modified because there’s a belief that some of the transmission was actually community transmission there.”
Marshall says it’s a good reminder to everyone that even with vaccines being administered, we can’t let down our guard.
“We are still in a pandemic, the variants of concern are something that I think everybody is worried about.”
So far, 1000 CKHA staff and physicians receive their first does of the COVID vaccine, but Marshall says that also brings the risk of a sense of false confidence.
The CKHA outbreaks were first declared on March 7th, affecting one staff and one patient in the Dialysis unit, and two staff and one patient connected with lab services. In that case, the patient was on the inpatient surgical unit.
