REGINA -- A total of 20 people have died at Extendicare Parkside in Regina.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) confirmed one additional death on Thursday.
The SHA said, as of Wednesday, there are 78 residents who have tested positive for COVID-19. There are also 82 staff members who have tested positive for the virus.
The CEO of the SHA said several possible factors contributed to the spread of the virus in the home over the last few weeks.
“You've already seen through our response some of the things that are highlighted that needed to be put in place to support care at that,” Scott Livingstone, CEO of the SHA said. “So that's infection control practices up to the SHA standard, the additional PPE, staffing levels within the facility because of some of the things that were going on during the outbreak weren't normal, and then looking at just the structure of the facility, the number of four-bed patient rooms which is not conducive to slowing down the spread of a virus as aggressive as COVID-19."
The outbreak of COVID-19 in the long-term care home was announced at the start of December.
Since then, the SHA moved 25 residents from Extendicare Parkside to Pioneer Village, another long-term care home in Regina, to lighten the workload on staff at the facility.
As of Dec. 10, 19 of the residents moved from Extendicare Parkside to Pioneer Village have tested positive for COVID-19.
The Health Authority says it’s looking into what contributed to the aggressive spread of COVID-19 and is identifying other facilities across the province that is at a higher risk.
