GRANITE RIDGE SAYS COVID TESTING COMING BACK NEGATIVE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — Test results are already coming back negative for some staff and residents at the Granite Ridge after a staff member learned through contact tracing that she had been exposed to COVID-19 through another person.
And that’s a positive for the the private LTC home on Bethune Drive.
Jackie Payne, director of the long-term care home here, said this morning that testing of all 65 residents and 55 staff was completed yesterday, Oct. 29, by a couple of teams of Muskoka paramedics.
And she told MuskokaTODAY.com in a return call Friday, Oct. 30, that she has heard that some people have already gone online overnight and learned they do not have the disease.
The unidentified woman who did test positive hasn’t worked in the LTC home since a week ago Thursday, Oct. 22.
And when she was informed she had been exposed she got tested on Sunday and her positive result came back this past Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Test results are posted online and accessed with a special group setting congregate code that also lets the health unit know.
Payne said she is confident the worker didn’t spread the coronavirus as no one else at Granite Ridge has shown COVID signs, which she said typically show up within about five days.
And today is the eighth day since her last shift.
The worker is self-isolating and has been ordered not to leave her home for 14 days from when she received her positive test.
Payne expects results of all the tests by this weekend and if negative the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit would lift the institutional outbreak lockdown order and the home could return to normal operations.
For now only essential and medical visits are permitted.
Residents are asked to remain in their rooms, except for meals.
No social gatherings are allowed in public areas. Meal sittings are split in to two groups with one person per table. And all group activities have been cancelled.
Payne said residents are adapting and taking restrictive measures in stride, having experienced this before, last April when protocols were first put in place when the first wave of the pandemic began to widen.
She said “it’s scary,” but because staff are already wearing masks that that has helped “keep a lid” on things and prevent any possible spread if they had come in contact with the infected worker.
Also, more space has been set aside in the staff room for social distancing.
However, Payne said six staff members have opted to stay off work until the outbreak is over as some are a little “nervous” or they may live with someone who older or who is more vulnerable.
In light of what has happened, Payne said she’d encourage all staff and the public to get the contact tracing app for their phone that anonymously alerts you if you come in contact with a person with COVID.
Although, she admits she hasn’t done it herself.
Meanwhile, plans are for flu shots on Nov. 16 are still going ahead.
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