Roberta Place is located on Essa Road in Barrie s south end. Raymond Bowe/BarrieToday
There is now evidence a COVID-19 variant has reached Simcoe County and may have led to the devastating outbreak at Roberta Place in south-end Barrie that has now claimed 19 lives.
Laboratory testing has identified a COVID variant in six swabs from the Essa Road long-term care home.
The variant strain testing is a two-part test. At this time, the first test indicates a very high probability that they are of a variant strain of concern. The second part of the test is a whole genome sequencing test to determine the exact strain. The results are expected in the next three to four days.