Perth County enduring largest local COVID-19 outbreak to date

Huron-Perth has largest ever COVID-19 outbreak A Stratford, Ont. retirement home is the epicentre of an outbreak after months of minimal cases. CTV London's Scott Miller has details.

Stratford, Ont. — It’s all hands on deck at a Stratford retirement home, as the Huron Perth Health Unit (HPPH) deals with its largest single-day increase in COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.

“It is the largest outbreak that we’ve had, and I know it’s very distressing to the staff at Cedarcroft that are doing their best, and I know it’s distressing here for staff at the health unit, who want to see this outbreak come under control quickly,” says Dr.Miriam Klassen, the medical officer of health for Huron and Perth counties.

Following several months of minimal cases, Huron-Perth saw an explosion of case numbers over the weekend with 34 positive tests, almost all of them in residents and staff at Cedarcroft Place Retirement Residence in Stratford.

There are now 48 active cases in Huron-Perth. That’s seven community cases, 10 amongst health care workers and 31 Cedarcroft residents. That means about a third of Cedarcroft residents are currently carrying COVID-19.

“I do believe a certain amount of spread likely happened by the time the first case was recognized and the outbreak was declared. But it’s been very different as we continue to see additional cases,” says Klassen.

The health unit has recalled six contact tracers, who were helping Peel Region, to help with Huron-Perth’s surge.

It's a surge that pushes the region dangerously close to moving from the lowest Green-Prevent into the new Yellow-Protect provincial COVID-19 precaution zone.

“We haven’t yet had those discussions. If you take the Cedarcroft outbreak out of our numbers, I think they would not necessarily put us into the yellow protect zone,” says Klassen.

Bruce Lillie from All Seniors Care released the following statement on behalf of Cedarcroft about the outbreak and their facility’s response:

“Our staff are determined. They’ve added shifts when asked, stayed a little longer to make sure all residents have been taken care of, and supported each other throughout the day."

With 46 cases in first nine days of November, Huron-Perth will easily eclipse their worst month for COVID-19, which was 47 new cases back in August, especially since the health unit still doesn’t now how the virus got into Cedarcroft, the epicentre of their biggest outbreak.

“We continue to look for reasons as to why the spread does continue, as we’ve not determined how COVID was introduced into the facility in the first place,” says Klassen.