There’s been one new death from COVID-19 at the Northwood long-term care facility in Halifax.
At this Wednesday’s COVID-19 update, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang said 22 of the province’s 28 deaths have happened at Northwood, a wide majority, but it’s a unique situation.
Dr. Strang said, of the 10 long-term care facilities in the province with reported outbreaks, Northwood is the only one with active cases.
“We have nine other long-term facilities, or seniors’ homes, which have had at least a case of COVID-19. I reviewed all those this morning with collogues, all of those facilities, we’ve had no new cases of COVID in staff or residents,” he said. “So, all the rest of our facilities who have had outbreaks, the outbreaks are stabilized; we don’t have ongoing cases.”
Dr. Strang said, despite that, they can’t declare those outbreaks over.
He said they have to wait until two COVID-19 incubation periods, which is 28 days, since the end of the last infection at the site to officially declare the outbreak over.
“There’s no ongoing disease activity, but we just haven’t reached that 28-day period to be able to declare the outbreak over.”
Dr. Strang reported 20 new cases Wednesday for a provincial total of 935.
