It’s unclear how coronavirus came into a small nursing home in Bobcaygeon, Ont. – whether it was brought in by a visitor or a new resident – but the number of cases and deaths there has stunned the cottage community about 150 kilometres northeast of Toronto.
An Ontario nursing home ravaged by an outbreak of COVID-19 confirmed Tuesday that three more residents have died, bringing the total number of coronavirus-linked fatalities among residents there to 12. A volunteer who visited her husband at the home has also died.
The outbreak has left those with family members at the Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon, Ont., feeling powerless to do anything.
Lloyd Thomas told CBC News he wishes he was well enough to take his wife out of the home, but he can’t.
“I was afraid my wife’s going to die,” he said in an interview with CBC News.
Thomas has nothing but praise for the nursing home, located in a town of around 3,500 people in Ontario’s cottage country about 150 kilometres northeast of Toronto, but the virus that has infected its residents has him fearing for her safety.
Thomas said a doctor at the facility told him his wife, Annabelle, is fine. But Thomas, who lives in Bobcaygeon, is 86, and Annabelle is two years older and has Alzheimer’s disease, meaning there’s little he can do but hope that she emerges healthy from the outbreak.
WATCH | CBC’s Ellen Mauro speaks with a woman who lost her mother at Pinecrest and a nurse worried about others inside the facility:
Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon, Ontario is reporting a COVID-19 outbreak after 9 residents died and at least 34 residents and staff tested positive for the virus. 2:05
The facility is home to 65 residents. Since a news release went out March 26 reporting that two residents at the home had died, ten more have succumbed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. A woman who stepped in to volunteer at the home has also died.
Michelle Snarr, the medical director of Pinecrest, said Monday at least three other residents have tested positive for COVID-19. More than a third of the home’s staff — 24 people — also tested positive, and test results for ten other staff members are pending, according to the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge Distri