The province has announced a new COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all visitors to long-term care homes due to rising cases and the threat posed by the Omicron variant.
Long-Term Care Minister Rod Phillips says the province is also bringing back surveillance testing for the homes for both staff and visitors.
The changes were announced just ahead of a briefing by chief medical officer Dr. Kieran Moore, who said it would be “prudent and reasonable” to assume every new case of COVID-19 in Ontario involves the Omicron variant.
Moore says the new, highly transmissible variant is expected to make up 100 per cent of the province’s case count by the end of the month.
The following measures at long-term care homes will also go into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, December 17, 2021:
- Testing of all staff, students, volunteers, and caregivers, regardless of vaccination status, at least twice a week prior to entry into the home as part of enhanced active screening practices.
- Requiring a negative test upon entry to a long-term care home for all visitors and support workers who provide essential services to a resident or to the facility, unless they had a negative test the day before.
- Requiring caregivers to be fully vaccinated, unless they have a valid medical exemption or are attending to a resident in a palliative end-of-life situation. Caregivers will be required to have a first dose by December 20, 2021 and all required doses to be considered fully vaccinated by February 21, 2022. In the interim, designated caregivers who are not fully vaccinated would need to restrict their visit to the resident’s room.
- Limiting indoor visits to a maximum of two people per resident at a time and outdoor visits, where feasible, to a maximum total of four people per resident at a time.
- Cohorting of residents for higher-risk activities, such as singing and dancing, and discouraging large social activities. This is in addition to the cohorting of residents during meal times, which is currently occurring.
- Limiting social day trips to only residents who are fully vaccinated and requiring those residents who leave the home for social reasons to be actively screened upon their return to the home and if they had a known exposure to a case, isolated and tested using a PCR test. All residents, regardless of vaccination status, can continue to leave the home for essential reasons, such as medical appointments.
- Suspending overnight absences for social purposes regardless of residents’ vaccination status. Residents who wish to leave the home overnight for social purposes or due to COVID-19 may be temporarily discharged and need to follow the re-admission protocol to return at a later date.
To further protect retirement home residents and staff from the spread of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant, Ontario is also enhancing its COVID-19 policies in retirement homes effective December 22, 2021 to keep residents safe, including:
- Requiring rapid antigen testing for staff, volunteers, contractors and essential caregivers, regardless of vaccination status, two times per week prior to entry into the home as part of enhanced active screening practices.
- Requiring rapid antigen testing for general visitors and support workers entering a retirement home, regardless of vaccination status.
- Strongly encouraging retirement homes to restrict general visitors to only those who are fully vaccinated and implementing additional requirements for essential visitors and general visitors who are not fully vaccinated when entering a retirement home.
- Limiting the number of visitors and group sizes for social activities and events.
- Implementing additional testing and isolation requirements for residents when they return from an overnight absence.
- Instructing retirement homes to increase IPAC audits.
