MONTREAL — More grim numbers have emerged at a long-term care facility in suburban Montreal as the Canadian Armed Forces prepared to fan out to nursing homes across a city that has become Canada’s COVID-19 epicentre. So far, 61 of 99 residents at the Residence Herron have tested positive for COVID-19, with some results still pending, according to the regional health authority. Some of the residents have been hospitalized “because of their condition,” said Guillaume Berube, a spokesman for the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Ile-de-Montreal. The new numbers do not include the 31 deaths reported earlier at the facility, which came under provincial trusteeship after reports of appalling conditions at the home. “Because of the 31 deaths, there’s an investigation, and I can confirm that five of them died because of the virus,” Berube said in a phone interview Saturday.

THE CANADIAN PRESS Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are shown at Residence Yvon-Brunet, a long-term care home in Montreal, on Saturday.

As he spoke, 125 military personnel with medical expertise geared up to deploy to nursing homes in the Montreal area after Premier Francois Legault took the unusual step of asking the federal government for assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces. “For the moment, five long-term care centres in the Greater Montreal area are at the heart of the reconnaissance efforts and the needs analysis will be performed in liaison with the civilian teams on site,” the Forces said in a release Saturday.

The regional health authority for Montreal’s West Island, which is now overseeing the Residence Herron, confirmed it will receive support from a team of military nurses and orderlies over the next few days. “A meeting will also take place today to determine which establishments in its jurisdiction will receive this support as a priority,” Berube said. The so-called intervention teams bound for the five long-term care homes in Montreal will be composed of one nurse and 12 technicians, each supported by support staff, the Forces said.

THE CANADIAN PRESS Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are shown at Residence Yvon-Brunet, a long-term care home in Montreal, on Saturday.

The regional health authority is also partnering with the Canadian Red Cross to organize training for volunteers at nursing homes ravaged by the pandemic. The Red Cross will train 40 people each day to help residents of the area’s long-term care facilities as the virus rages through Quebec, which counts the most confirmed cases of any province at more than 17,500, the health agency said. The province reports that 805 Quebecers have now died due to the virus, more than half of them in Montreal, where there are more than 8,000 confirmed cases. Among the dead was the first orderly in Montreal to succumb to the disease, according to the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

THE CANADIAN PRESS A Rest In Peace card and flowers are shown outside a long-term care home in Montreal on Saturday.