With no active cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia’s long term care homes, the premier said it was
Premier Stephen McNeil (Government of Nova Scotia photo)
a good day to announce the easing of some visitor restrictions.
Premier Stephen McNeil said COVID-19 has been hard on seniors living in nursing homes, adding it’s also been difficult for the families who can only visit through a window or on a screen. He said such measures were necessary to protect seniors and reduce the numbers of COVID-19 cases. With no long term care homes currently reporting cases, McNeil said he and chief medical health officer Dr. Robert Strang felt it is time to ease some of the restrictions for visits to long term care homes and homes for people with disabilities that are funded by the department of community services.
As of June 15, visits can resume with but there will be restrictions, including visitors staying six feet apart from residents and all visits must happen outside.
Other restrictions include a maximum of two visitors attending at one time, visitors must be screened for COVID-19 upon entry and wear a non-medical mask, and visits will be monitored by staff.
Strang again urged residents to remain vigilant when it comes to COVID-19, despite case
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s Chief Medical Officer of Health (Government of Nova Scotia photo)
numbers remaining low.
Strang said it is important that we sustain, not just for the next couple of weeks, but all the way through this new phase of COVID-19 and through the summer. There needs to be a high capacity and a low threshold for testing while the province also has to maintain testing capacity to rapidly follow up cases and contacts.