have died of COVID-19 and several doz-
en more are infected. “These people are
dying, gasping for air.”
PSWs who haven’t fallen ill with CO-
VID-19 themselves are struggling to
meet the needs of residents at the hun-
dreds of homes across Canada that
have recorded at least one case of in-
fection. Some of the worst-hit are the
short-staffed facilities with widespread
outbreaks, including a home in Bobcay-
geon, Ont., where 27 residents have
died.
Another major outbreak has killed
eight and sickened more than 100 at
the Sainte-Dorothée long-term care
centre in Laval, a suburb of Montreal.
At the Laflèche long-term care centre in
Shawinigan, Que., there have been 12
deaths due to COVID-19 and 101 con-It is a job that is unregulated and poorly
paid, with part-time schedules that of-
ten force the mostly female workers to
take shifts at two or three facilities to
eke out a living.
Personal support workers, the aides
who bathe, dress and feed the elderly
and chronically ill, are now on the front
lines of the fight against COVID-19 in
nursing homes, the places that have
suffered most as the novel coronavirus
has swept across Canada.
“We are in crisis mode,” said Rebecca
Piironen, a PSW at Anson Place Care
Centre, a retirement and nursing home
near Hamilton, where eight residents
firmed infections. Seventeen residents
of the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North
Vancouver have died of COVID-19.
Calgary’s McKenzie Towne Contin-
uing Care Centre is home to Alberta’s
largest outbreak. The facility’s 11 deaths
account for nearly half of the province’s
24 fatalities, as of Monday. About half of
the residents have been infected.
At least eight are dead of COVID-19 at
Seven Oaks, a municipally owned
home in Toronto, while six have died at
the Markhaven Home for Seniors in
Markham, north of Toronto.
“PSWs are crying before they go in
for their shifts in long-term care,” said
Miranda Ferrier, president of the Cana-
dian Support Workers Association.
“They cry in their cars.”
WORKERS,A‘Weareincrisismode’:PSWson
frontlinesofhard-hitnursinghomes
Ahealth-careworkerbringssuppliesintotheSainte-Dorothéelong-termcarecentreinLaval,Que.onTuesday.Amajoroutbreak
attheresidencehaskilledeightandsickenedmorethan100.RYANREMIORZ/THECANADIANPRESS
KELLYGRANT
ERINANDERSSEN
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MON-FRI:$4.
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AWAYTOSECURELYSHAREINFORMATIONWITH
OURJOURNALISTSTGAM.CA/SECUREDROPINSIDE A-SECTION B-SECTION
ANDREWCOYNE........................A
LAWRENCEMARTIN.....................A
JOHNDOYLE............................A
JEFFREYJONES..........................B
BONNIE-JEANNEMacDONALD...........B
ROBCARRICK............................B
FOLIO ................................A10-
EDITORIAL&LETTERS...................A
OPINION................................A
LIFE&ARTS............................A
FIRSTPERSON..........................A
WEATHER&PUZZLES...................AREPORTONBUSINESS....................B
GLOBEINVESTOR........................B
SPORTS .................................B
COMICS .................................B
OBITUARIES............................BOTTAWA/QUEBECEDITION ■ WEDNESDAY,APRIL8,2020 ■ GLOBEANDMAIL.COMTen days after locking down the city of
Wuhan, Chinese authorities took another
dramatic step to curtail a viral outbreak –
and civil liberties: Beginning Feb. 2, offi-
cials forced into “centralized quarantine”
anyone with a fever and people who had
been in close contact with someone be-
lieved to be infected by the novel coro-
navirus.
In the weeks that followed, thousands
of people were taken from their homes
and forcibly placed in hotels, dormitories,
convention centres and even converted
classrooms at Communist Party schools.
The idea was to keep the virus from
spreading at home, as well.
It’s the exact opposite of what is taking
place in many other parts of the world,
where authorities have sought to keep
people out of hospitals unless their cases
are severe.
The government of Canada’s official
advice to those with mild symptoms is to
“isolate yourself at home,” although it
counsels staying in a separate room.
But epidemiologists say China demon-
strated the importance of taking infected
family members – even those not serious-
ly ill – out of the home as a way to halt the
formation of small clusters of cases
among those living in close quarters.
CHINA, AOut-of-home
quarantine:China
usedadifferent
tacktolimitvirus
NATHANVANDERKLIPPE
ASIACORRESPONDENT
BEIJINGWith demand growing for blood tests that
can reveal who may have already been ex-
posed to the COVID-19 coronavirus, re-
searchers at Sinai Health’s Lunenfeld-Ta-
nenbaum Research Institute in Toronto
are tailoring a robotic system to process
such tests on a massive scale.
If samples can be gathered in sufficient
number, the platform could offer the
quickest route to answering key questions
about the extent of the pandemic in Cana-
da and potentially determine who is al-
ready immune to the novel coronavirus af-
ter having suffered only a mild or asympto-
matic case of COVID-19.
“We could run 10,000 samples per day,”
said Anne-Claude Gingras, a senior investi-
gator at the institute and co-leader of the
effort. “So this really would enable us to
profile big numbers of patients.”
Dr. Gingras added that the ability to
handle so many tests at once would also
allow for a single patient’s sample to be
tested several times, providing more confi-
dence in the result than could be obtained
from a one-time use commercial test kit.
The need for more testing capacity has
been an issue since cases of COVID-19 be-
gan appearing in significant numbers in
Canada. In general, a higher priority has
been placed on tests that can determine if
someone is actively infected with the coro-
navirus and therefore likely to be infec-
tious based on the presence of viral genetic
material in the patient’s samples.
TESTS,AResearchers
developrobotic
systemtoseewho
hasbeenexposed
IVANSEMENIUK
SCIENCEREPORTERThe Liberalgovernment is expanding
access to its proposed wage-subsidy
program for employers, according to
draft legislation obtained by The Globe
and Mail, and is also putting the finish-
ing touches on a plan to offer small
businesses interest-free loans.
The draft bill on wage subsidies ad-
dresses business concerns that eligibil-
ity was overly restricted in the initial
outline of the $71-billion effort to keep
employers connected to their work
forces during the COVID-19 health cri-
sis.
Government officials are also work-
ing with bankers and lawyers to finalize
details on an interest-free loan program
for small businesses, guaranteed by $25-
billion ingovernment funds. Canada’s
largest banks and credit unions are aim-
ing to open the loan program to appli-cations on Thursday, although the tim-
ing is still uncertain, according to three
financial industry sources.
Federal officials are trying to shorten
the time needed to verify applications
for those loans to two days, according to
the sources.
As recently as Sunday, thegovern-
ment wanted a waiting period of up to
five days before funds are released to
approved small businesses, but banks
pushed for a faster turnaround.
SUBSIDY,AOttawareadieskeyprograms
forbeleagueredbusinesses
Eligibilityrulesrelaxedforwagesubsidies;detailsbeingfinalizedforsmall-businessloans
BILLCURRY
ROBERTFIFEOTTAWA
JAMESBRADSHAWTORONTO
UNITEDSTATES
DeathtollinNewYorknow
higherthan9/11 A
SCIENCE
Canadastartsexperimental
virustreatment ACOMPUTER-SIMULATION
’93BlueJaystoplay’
Exposinshowdown B