Update:
The provincial government announced today it will spend $2.4 million on Ontario Health Teams across the province.
With the addition of 13 new Ontario Health Teams, the province now has a total of 42 teams which will cover over 86 per cent of the province's population at maturity.
"While still in its early stages, Ontario Health Teams are already breaking down long-standing barriers to better connect care for both patients and our frontline heroes," said Heatlth Minister Christine Elliott. "These teams have demonstrated remarkable responsiveness to the COVID-19 outbreak by helping to address challenges in a variety of areas, and they are essential to building a connected health care system centred around the needs of patients."
The 13 new Ontario Health Teams are:
- Frontenac, Lennox & Addington Ontario Health Team in the Frontenac, Lennox and Addington region, including Kingston, Greater Napanee and surrounding rural communities.
- Brantford Brant Ontario Health Team in Brantford and Brant County.
- Downtown East Toronto Ontario Health Team in Downtown East Toronto.
- Kawartha Lakes Ontario Health Team in the City of Kawartha Lakes and surrounding areas.
- Kitchener, Waterloo, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich Ontario Health Team in Kitchener, Waterloo, Wilmot, Woolwich and Wellesley.
- Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Ontario Health Team in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, and southern Lanark County area.
- Mid-West Toronto Ontario Health Team in the west end of downtown Toronto.
- Oxford and Area Ontario Health Team in Oxford County and the surrounding area.
- Rainy River Ontario Health Team in the Rainy River District.
- Sarnia Lambton Ontario Health Team in the Sarnia-Lambton region.
- Scarborough Ontario Health Team in Scarborough and surrounding communities.
- South Georgian Bay Ontario Health Team in the South Georgian Bay Region, including Collingwood, Wasaga Beach, Clearview and The Blue Mountains.
- West Toronto Ontario Health Team in West Toronto.
To further protect long-term care home residents, staff and visitors, the Ontario government is also updating testing guidance in communities with greater transmission of COVID-19. Starting next week, in long-term care homes in public health unit regions in the Orange-Restrict, Red-Control and Lockdown levels under the COVID-19 Response Framework, the following changes will be made:
- Staff, essential caregivers and support workers who provide direct care to residents need to be tested for COVID-19 weekly and show proof of a negative test result.
- Support workers who do not provide direct care to residents must verbally attest to having received a negative COVID-19 test result in the past two weeks and not subsequently tested positive.
For long-term care homes in regions at the Green-Prevent and Yellow-Protect levels, testing will continue every two weeks for staff, volunteers, caregivers and visitors.
Original story:
Premier Doug Ford is slated to make an announcement at 1 p.m. at Queen's Park.
Ford will be joined by Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, Merrilee Fullterton, Minister of Long-Term Care, and Dr. David Williams, Chief Medical Officer of Health, to make the announcement.
Village Media will carry the livestream, so stay tuned.
