Public health officials are working closely with Quinte Health Care to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak in the Intensive Care Unit of Belleville General Hospital.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Piotr Oglaza reported on the situation during a meeting of the Hastings Prince Edward Board of Health on Wednesday.
During a media session Dr. Oglaza explained, “It’s a situation that indicates how easily the virus spreads even with the infection prevention and control measures that are maintained in hospital. It is still possible for the pathogen to spread and our ability to identify really who the index case was might be limited but I think that the main issue here is it involves both patients and staff and also Quinte 5 is the unit where we have a patient admitted with COVID. There’s no question that there’s pathogen in the hospital because that’s the nature of the hospital to take care of patients that are sick.”
Oglaza added, “This is something that everyone treats very seriously and we’re working together, the team and Quinte Heath Care, to implement measures, contain the spread and manage it, like we would manage any other outbreak in a facility or a hospital.
“An indication how easily the virus is spreading in a setting even in a setting with a heightened standard like a hospital so that certainly is a top priority for everyone both from our agency as well as our partners at QHC.”
During a media briefing following the board meeting, Dr. Ethan Toumishey was asked if the public would ever know where the cases originated and how the virus spread in the hospital since there are control measures there.
“The recent wave is probably the most experience locally that we’ve seen with true community transmission that may be occurring as opposed to where main drivers would be for people for exposures to hot spot regions.”
Toumishey continued, “When we look at the province that is the majority of cases that are arising are of the B117 lineage. The concern that we have is I think this applies in settings just in general that it is very clear that the risk of transmission is higher with B117. We see more severity associated with it. Then a driver of our overall spread and reinforces need of all the public health measures and control measures when we look at a particular setting which is the hospital to control for the risk.”
Officials also indicate the risk of transmission with the B117 variant is higher.
