Two more residents at Warrigal aged care facility have tested positive to COVID-19.
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Both were double vaccinated and asymptomatic, a spokeswoman told The Post.
It brings the total to four residents who have returned positive results to the virus. Two returned positive tests after visiting a relative on Christmas Day and were also asymptomatic. They had also received both vaccinations and a booster shot.
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"All (four) residents have (since) been PCR tested again and the results we have received so far have all come back negative," the spokeswoman said.
"No residents at Warrigal Goulburn have been hospitalised as a result of COVID."
The facility will remain in lockdown, with 'outbreak management conditions' applying until management is confident no further risk of infection is likely.
"We continue to test our residents and staff frequently to monitor the situation," the spokeswoman said.
The Goulburn Post understands Waminda aged care facility has also registered a further two positive tests in residents. The Salvation Army, which operates the centre, will not confirm numbers, other than to say it is in outbreak management phase as well. This includes restrictions on access and internal movement but allows contact between residents and their loved ones on compassionate grounds.
The Salvation Army has referred The Post to the federal Department of Health and the NSW Public Health Unit for figures. But neither are obliged to release figures for private providers. The federal health department, which manages aged care, has not returned requests for comment.
The cases come on top of a positive result in a staff member and one in a resident, reported at Waminda last week. Local man Richard Orchard said his father, Frank, was admitted to Goulburn Base Hospital's intensive care unit on December 29 after feeling unwell the night before. He was also double vaccinated and had received a booster shot.
Mr Orchard senior was later moved to a general ward and has since been returned to Waminda. Richard said his father was in isolation and was being monitored.
"They're concerned about him due to his age (87) but so far, so good," he said.
He was unsure whether his father had the Omicron strain but expressed his frustration that double vaccination and a booster shot had not prevented him contracting the virus.
Richard said the aged care facilities should release publicly COVID case numbers.
"This is a free society. Up until November 2019, it was run on fairness, transparency and openness and being able to ask questions on issues," he said.
"But now you can't even ask how many cases there are in nursing homes. There also appears to be no science on what combats Omicron."
Elsewhere, Royal Freemasons Benevolent Institution CEO, Frank Price said no further confirmed cases had arisen at Goulburn's Masonic Village aged care facility. However one had a positive rapid antigen test, which was yet to be confirmed in a PCR test. The aged care industry is bound to commission the PCR.
Mr Price said this week that three staff members and two residents had returned positive COVID results. The residents, housed in the dementia wing, were asymptomatic.
"We have been more fortunate than some other facilities," he said.
"The fact that we rapid antigen test every day of the week, rather than every three days that the federal government suggests, means that we are picking up the cases rather than taking any risk."
The tests were performed from last August but became daily in early December when Goulburn Mulwaree's case numbers were rising.
However, they come at a cost. Mr Price said his organisation was paying $5 to $6 per test which equated to about $155,000 across one week for all of RFBI's aged care facilities.
"It's a very expensive exercise and up until now it hasn't been funded by anyone," Mr Price said.
He hoped lockdown could be lifted at the north Goulburn facility in the next few days but this was dependent on whether there were any further positive cases.
"Luck does play a big part," he said.
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Louise Thrower
If you have a story to tell, drop me a line at louise.thrower@austcommunitymedia.com.au or call 0418 229 678.
If you have a story to tell, drop me a line at louise.thrower@austcommunitymedia.com.au or call 0418 229 678.
