It's being called a "milestone day" for the Village at St Clair long-term care home.
As of Friday, the Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare senior leadership team that stepped in to assist when the home was in the peak of its outbreak, is transitioning off-site.
HDGH Spokesperson Bill Marra says after three weeks, they are phasing out their physical presence there.
"We'll continue our working relationship with them, I'll continue to support their incident management team through Zoom calls and we'll continue to provide clinical support where needed," he says. "In fact, the overall working relationship with Schlegel and other LTCs [long-term care homes] will continue throughout the pandemic."
Marra says the HDGH team leaving will be a phased approach.
"One of the first initiatives we assisted with was establishing was an incident management response team, I will continue to be a member of that team," says Marra. "It's really a team that comes together on a daily basis to assess the status of PPE, human and health resources, the key indicators of the outbreak are monitored on a daily basis."
According to Marra, progress at the home will continue to be monitored on a weekly basis and will further transition away.
"But as you and your listeners know and our community know, it's such a fluid and ever-changing situation," he says. "There are daily numbers that fluctuate, there are daily outbreaks that fluctuate, the goal is on a day-to-day bases to monitor and respond accordingly."
According to a statement from Schlegel Villages, the arrival of the Moderna Vaccine for residents, team members and some essential caregivers connected to the home has created optimism that a corner has been turned in the management of a serious COVID-19 outbreak in the 256-bed long-term care home.
According to the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, the home at 1800 Talbot Road in Windsor was first declared in outbreak on December 8, 2020 — a total of 150 residents and 119 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.