Testing ramped up in the local area
Public Health Sudbury & Districts and Health Sciences North has partnered up to ramp up testing.
Communications officer, Jason Turnball says from April 10th to April 12th, 266 people were assessed by phone and 268 patients were swabbed over three days.
He says most of the testing carried out this weekend was at its assessment centre at 56 Walford Road, the new drive-thru option introduced on Friday, and a mobile site option, which was introduced on Saturday,
Meanwhile, Public Health Sudbury & Districts report 1,520 tests done through their testing sites.
There are now over 40 positives in the Greater Sudbury area and ten positives in the Algoma District.
All patients continue to first be assessed by phone by an HSN nurse by calling 705-671-7373. All three Greater Sudbury COVID-19 assessment options are by appointment only. They are designed to protect health workers and patients alike from being exposed to the virus. For safety reasons, “walk-in” appointments are strictly prohibited.
The virus in Ontario
Premier Doug Ford says long-term care homes are the front line in the battle against the coronavirus, and the province is doing all it can to help.
Currently, 89 homes are reporting COVID-19 outbreaks across the province, with at least 120 deaths.
Ford says millions of items of personal protective equipment have been delivered to the homes over the past few days,
There have now been almost 75-hundred confirmed cases of the virus across Ontario, with another 421 reported as of yesterday.
So far, there have been 291 deaths, with more than 33-hundred people now recovered.
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health is encouraged by an apparent levelling in the number of new infections.
Dr. Barbara Yaffe says models show we should reach a peak in the daily number of new cases sometime this week.
The virus across Canada
The federal government has new guidelines to try to stem the outbreak of the coronavirus in long-term care homes.
That includes restricting entry only to visitors and volunteers who are essential for basic, medical or compassionate residential care.
Those staff will be required to wear masks and be screened as they enter the workplace.
Employees should also be limited to working at only one facility, where possible.
The new guidelines were developed in consultation with the provinces.
Ottawa also announced 50-million dollars to help the food and agricultural sectors cope with a mandatory 14-day isolation period for temporary foreign workers arriving in Canada.
Currently, there have been more than 25-thousand diagnoses of COVID-19 across the country.
Some 74-hundred people have recovered, 780 people have died.
