Niagara’s Oakwood Park Lodge in building-wide COVID-19 outbreak

Oakwood Park Lodge in Niagara Falls has declared a building-wide COVID-19 outbreak. The home did a universal testing that took place on December 15th, where they found a “significant number of residents and staff testing positive for COVID-19.”

“We’re doing everything possible to organize care for Oakwood Park Lodge residents and make sure that families are kept updated about their loved ones,” said Stephen Moran, Administrator, Oakwood Park Lodge in a statement. “We’re also working with staff to deploy additional personal protective equipment and other resources needed to safely care for residents and resolve the outbreak.”

According to Ontario’s COVID-19 summary, 88 residents and 30 staff have tested positive for the virus. Six people have died. The home has 153 total residents.

Niagara Region Public Health could not confirm the number. They say that they defer to every long-term care and retirement home to release their numbers of respect to each being independent organizations. However, they did confirm to CHCH News that more than half the residents have been infected.

“Oakwood Park Lodge is consulting with public health agencies and local health providers including Public Health Ontario, Public Health – Niagara Region and the Niagara Health System on heightening infection prevention and control practices and other measures to help bring about a safe resolution to this outbreak,” said Moran.

Niagara Region announced 92 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday. This comes after their record 126 on Saturday.