TORONTO — Jewish camps in cottage country north of Toronto remain open and are carrying on with regular summer activities, despite having been hit by swine flu.
TORONTO — Jewish camps in cottage country north of Toronto remain open and are carrying on with regular summer activities, despite having been hit by swine flu.
The parent of an infected child at Camp Ramah – located in Utterson, Ont., 220 kilometres north of the city – said camp officials reported that more than 100 campers and staff have had the H1N1 virus over the past few weeks.
Many campers from the Toronto area were sent home and only allowed back to camp once they had recovered. Campers from the United States, along with some from Canada, were quarantined in the camp’s infirmary and guest quarters until they recovered.
On July 16, Ramah’s director, Michael Wolf, issued a statement updating his camp’s status, emphasizing that all of the flu cases have been “mild” and those affected had recovered within “a few days.”
He added: “Our first priority is always the well-being of our campers, and we will always care for them in accordance with all recommended protocols.”
The release also noted that despite the outbreak, the camp, which has 450 campers and is affiliated with the Conservative movement, “has carried on with its normal day-to-day activities, which include sports, swimming, waterskiing, canoeing, sailing, tripping and arts and crafts.”
In an earlier statement, one of a series of updates to parents, Wolf said that Ramah’s “staff have been outstanding, and the reaction from our parents has been extremely supportive.”
On July 7, Wolf told parents in an e-mail that the camp had been “continuing to see a few new cases of flu-like symptoms each day” but that Ramah is “not alone in dealing with flu this summer. Most summer camps in the Muskoka region are experiencing similar issues.”
He said the camp has been following guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and has “redoubled its efforts” to clean and sanitize camp equipment to prevent further spread.
In other attempts to minimize the spread of flu, Ramah has tweaked its July 19 visitor’s day protocol, asking family members to refrain from attending if they have flu-like symptoms and urging infants, the elderly and expectant mothers to curb their visits this year for their own protection.
As well, parents of campers scheduled to head home that day – which also marks the end of Ramah’s first session – have been asked to send their kids home by bus rather than pick them up as part of visitor’s day.
Meanwhile, at Camp Agudah, an Orthodox camp in Port Carling, Ont., as many as 40 youngsters have developed flu-like symptoms over the past three weeks, which camp medical staff are attributing to H1N1, said director Rabbi Moishe Blaustein.
“We have two to three girls in quarantine who are still ill, and another two or three of those who were sent home are still sick,” Blaustein told the Toronto Star. “Some of our campers were quite ill.”
At Camp George, a Reform facility in Parry Sound, Ont., at least one girl was sent home and the rest of her cabin was isolated. Some 20 campers in total have been sent home.
Camp Tamarack, a Jewish-owned camp near Bracebridge, Ont., that experienced an unspecified number of cases, said in a July 16 statement that it has “taken whatever precautions necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus,” and “as a result, we have seen a virtual elimination in the number of individuals with the familiar symptoms of this particular virus at camp.”
Health officials stressed that all cases at Ontario camps have been mild, adding that there have been no hospitalizations and that campers are not in danger.
“With ordinary, average, healthy children, I encourage people to go ahead and send them to camp and enjoy the camp experience,” Dr. Charles Gardner, Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit’s chief medical officer, told the Globe and Mail.
There have been 10,156 confirmed cases of H1N1 in Canada, and 44 deaths nationwide to date.