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A devastating coronavirus outbreak at a long-term care home in Barrie has finally ended. Roberta place long-term care home said Thursday that the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit has formally declared an end to the outbreak that ravaged the home during the second wave of the pandemic, leaving 71 people dead. An outbreak was declared at the home on Jan. 8. Since then, the highly contagious U.K. variant (B.1.1.7) tore through the home infecting more than 250 people, including all but one of the 127 residents. An essential caregiver who frequented the facility also died. “Over the cours...

The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit confirms the U.K. variant has been identified at Roberta Place Long-Term Care home in Barrie

COVID-19 has hit Barrie retirement home Roberta Place hard

The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit confirms the UK variant has been identified at Roberta Place Long-Term Care home in Barrie

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 det...