Two cases of COVID-19 linked to the Assiniboine Centre at the Brandon Regional Health Centre over the weekend were found in health-care workers and the third was found in a patient, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Monday.
The patient likely contracted the virus at the facility, according to Roussin.
“It looks like we had a client who tested positive who had been admitted much longer than the incubation period and then we had the two staff who tested positive,” he said. “That’s the only connection we can come up with right now. … This client was certainly in too long to have been exposed outside the facility.”
These three cases at the hospital were first identified on Sunday, but more specifics were not provided until Monday’s COVID briefing. A government spokesperson said in an email that only those who are considered to have been in close contact with people who tested positive will be contacted by health officials.
In a statement emailed to the Sun, Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said her union is not aware of any of the positive cases in Brandon being nurses. Jackson also expressed concern regarding the outbreaks at Brandon care homes and called for greater transparency from the government.
“In most cases, nurses learn of outbreaks in health facilities at the same time as the general public. We are advocating for improved information sharing with nurses and other health-care professionals, and believe enhanced transparency in the immediate and long term is critical for a robust and effective public health response to COVID-19.”
Additionally, Roussin announced that an investigation discovered that a previously identified case of COVID-19 is a health-care worker at the Fairview Personal Care Home in Brandon and is a close contact of a previously known case. Close contacts of the health-care worker are being identified and the case investigation continues.
