A major COVID-19 outbreak at the Severn Court Student Residence in Peterborough has resulted in 23 positive cases detected as of noon on Sunday (February 28).
During a Peterborough Public Health media briefing held Sunday, medical officer of health Dr. Rosana Salvaterra said the outbreak is rooted in a “gathering” held last Saturday (February 20) at the six-building complex at 555 Wilfred Drive near Fleming College’s Sutherland Campus.
Nineteen of the 23 people who have tested positive are residents at Severn Court, while the remaining four are Trent University students who had attended the gathering. Those four are now self-isolating at Trent’s Otonabee College.
Dr. Salvaterra has issued a Section 22 order that closes the student residence to visitors and requires by law that all those living at the 200-student complex self-isolate.
Fleming president Maureen Adamson, who was also at the briefing, announced that all in-person instruction at the college’s Sutherland Campus has been suspended immediately for at least the next two weeks — a move that affects some 700 students.
“What concerns me most is the index case has screened positive for a (COVID-19) variant of concern,” said Dr. Salvaterra. “We are still awaiting the results of genomic sequencing but we are presuming this to be a variant of concern. We’re not sure which one yet, but we now we are dealing with a highly contagious strain of the COVID-19 virus.”
Speaking to the timeline of the outbreak, Dr. Salvaterra said the first positive case in a student who resides at Severn Court was identified on Thursday (February 25). Several high-risk contacts were subsequently identified and a second positive case was affirmed the following day.
“It was here that we learned there had been a gathering on February 20th held at the Severn Court property, and we learned that there were students from both Fleming and Trent University in attendance. We are still gathering more information on that event.”
On Saturday (February 27), the health unit identified more high-risk contacts as positive cases, at which point an outbreak was declared. By today (Sunday) at noon, an additional 13 cases had been identified as positive.
“We’ve issued a stay-at-home order for all the (Severn Court) residents regardless of whether they are a case or contact. That means no school and no work — they can only leave the building for food or medication.”
The four Trent students that tested positive are virtual learners and “there has been no on-campus exposure”, Dr. Salvaterra said.
As for the prospect that organizers of the gathering will be ticketed, Dr. Salvaterra said “That’s a potential outcome” but noted information is still being gathered.
“At this point we don’t have enough information to take any action, but if that changes we certainly can and will.”
While admitting to being “disappointed” by the holding of the event that led to the outbreak, Dr. Salvaterra said it’s not a surprise this happened.
“I realize how difficult it’s been for some people to remain distant and carry out all of the public health measures,” she said. “People are becoming more comfortable with the idea that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. COVID maybe isn’t as frightening as it once was.”
“We can’t go back to normal,” Dr. Salvaterra added. “We are not able to gather and socialize the way we did. I’m disappointed but it’s not unexpected. We just need to focus now on trying to contain this as quickly as possible.”
“My worry is we’re going to have many people become ill before they’ve had the benefit of getting the vaccine.”
Along with the outbreak associated with the Severn Court Student Residence, two other outbreaks continue — one that was reported just this past Friday (February 26) at Empress Gardens Retirement Residence at 131 Charlotte Street at Water Street)in downtown Peterborough, and the other at the Buckhorn Nursery and Day Care Centre that was reported February 16th.
The latest information is there are 17 cases associated with the Buckhorn outbreak — six involving staff members and 11 involving children.
