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Update: An employee at the Manoir du Havre has tested positive for COVID-19
Gaspé: – The management of the Gaspé Peninsula Integrated Health and Social Services Centre (CISSS) has confirmed that an employee at Manoir du Havre, a private residence for seniors, located in Maria, has tested positive for COVID-19 and was transferred to a designated facility in Quebec City.
The Manoir du Havre employee travelled to Quebec City on March 12 with five friends. The show they were supposed to attend was cancelled. On that same day Premier François Legault started providing daily updates of the COVID-19 situation in Quebec.
The employee spent the weekend (March 13, 14 and 15) in Quebec City before returning to Maria. She worked the following week. On March 20, she started experiencing respiratory problems. She went to the Maria hospital on March 24 and was diagnosed with pneumonia and returned home. On Friday March 27, she returned to the hospital by ambulance and was tested for COVID-19. She was also hospitalized at that time. The test result came back two days later and it was positive. Due to the state of her health, she was transferred to a Quebec City hospital.
Chantal Duguay, director general of the Gaspé Peninsula Integrated Health and Social Services Centre (CISSS) explains that when the Manoir du Havre employee went to Quebec City, people travelling within Quebec were not targeted as potential candidates to run COVID-19 tests.
“The question was: did you travel outside the country?” says Ms. Duguay. She also says that, despite instructions issued on March 12, to the effect of restricting people’s movements between regions, “it was only a rule, not a ban.”
In addition, 24 people who had significant contact with this employee and who have symptoms are considered to have COVID-19 as well.
The 24 new cases include three Manoir du Havre residents who are currently being cared for at a hospital in the region. The others, including residents and employees are in quarantine at their place of residence.
According to the CISSS measures have been put in place to prevent the spread of the virus at the Manoir du Havre and at the hospital.
Regionally, as of March 30 at 9 p.m., there were 166 negative tests, 37 positive tests and 61 tests awaiting results.
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Regional update: Four new cases in the Gaspé Peninsula and Magdalen Islands
CARLETON – The Regional Public Health Board is reporting four additional cases of coronavirus in the Gaspé Peninsula and Magdalen Islands, as of March 30. This brings the overall total for the region to 13 cases.
Of the four new cases, one person was transferred to a designated hospital, in Quebec City. It is the first case of someone from the Gaspé Peninsula or Magdalen Islands being hospitalized due to Covid-19.
In two of the four new cases, the people had travelled; one outside the country and one to another part of Quebec. The two other cases were infected by people living under the same roof. They are the first two such cases in the region.
The first nine people infected in the region had travelled outside Quebec, seven outside the country and two elsewhere in Canada.
Those infected with Covid-19 are not formally hospitalized in the Gaspé Peninsula and the Magdalen Islands, explains Clémence Beaulieu-Gendron, communications officer for the Regional Integrated Health and Social Service Centre. If necessary, they are put in isolation, in one of the region’s hospitals while awaiting test results. They are transferred to a designated hospital in Quebec City, only if the condition of their health does not allow them to stay at home.