Premier Doug Ford’s mother-in-law has COVID-19, shining a personal light on the dire situation in long-term care where deaths now account for 70 per cent of Ontario’s fatalities from the ruthless virus.

Ford choked up Thursday when asked about the rapid spread of the illness as the federal government granted requests from Ontario and Quebec to send military medical teams into hard-hit nursing homes.

“I relate to it in our own family,” Ford said of his wife Karla’s 95-year-old mother, Julie, who is in West Park Healthcare Centre with Alzheimer’s disease.

“You see a loved one with their elderly parent and they put their hand up against the window, that’s heartbreaking,” he added, fighting tears.

Karla Ford and her sister have been singing to their ailing mother, who tested positive last week, from outside the window of her room.

Like the families of 77,000 other residents of 626 nursing homes in the province, they are desperate to keep in touch when visits are off-limits during the pandemic that has seen outbreaks in at least 135 long-term care facilities.

Ford said he was relieved Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to send teams from the Canadian Armed Forces to help in five hard-hit but as yet unidentified nursing homes.

Trudeau noted “this is not a long-term solution” and more steps will have to be taken across the country to improve care in nursing homes.

The premier agreed.

“At the end of the day the buck stops with me. We’ll make sure we get it fixed,” said Ford.

The 516 nursing home deaths are 70 per cent of the 713 total deaths officially reported by the province as of 4 p.m. Wednesday in the public health database.

A more timely compilation by the Star as of 5 p.m. Thursday shows an increase of 39 deaths in the previous 24 hours to a total of 799, along with another 586 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19, pushing the tally to 14,304 since the outbreak began in January. The numbers were compiled using data from Ontario’s 34 regional public health units.

A total of 2,189 nursing home residents and 1,058 workers have tested positive for the new coronavirus. They account for two-thirds of the 1,626 health-care workers who have come down with COVID-19. A personal support worker from a Scarborough nursing home died last week.

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The Ministry of Health is reporting 887 people were in hospital for COVID-19 with 233 in intensive care and 185 of them on ventilators.

Just under 6,700 Ontarians have recovered from the new coronavirus since the first confirmed case arrived from China in January.

Across Canada, there have been 1,974 deaths and 41,190 cases.

With files from Tonda MacCharles

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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