Ontario invests $398 million in long-term care homes

Ontario is investing an additional $398 million during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce the risk of the virus entering long-term care homes from the community.

This brings Ontario's total funding to protect the homes since the start of the pandemic to $1.38 billion, according to the government.

The new funding will help homes adhere to enhanced staff and visitor testing requirements and continue to improve COVID-19 prevention and containment.

Since January 2020, there have been 11,511 cases of COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Ontario, and 4,479 cases among staff. Almost 3,000 (2,830) residents have died from the virus along with eight staff. Currently, 216 homes are reporting an outbreak.

Toronto Public Health (TPH) has announced that it will begin reporting workplace-related outbreaks of the COVID-19 virus on a weekly basis.

Vaccinations rolling out

Ontario has already vaccinated more than 46,000 long-term care and retirement homes staff and healthcare workers in the province, according to the government.

Over 26,000 vaccinations have already been administered to health care workers in long-term care homes and retirement homes while over 20,000 vaccinations administered to health care workers.

"We continue to do everything we can to help stop the spread of this virus and protect our most vulnerable, as well as the staff who have been working tirelessly to keep residents safe," says Merrilee Fullerton, minister of long-term care. "While we rollout the vaccine as quickly as possible, we are also providing additional support to help homes detect any cases early so that the virus can be contained."

In November, Ontario announced it is rolling out nearly 1.3 million COVID-19 rapid tests in select workplaces in an effort to identify and manage outbreaks and stop the spread of COVID-19.