Two dozen B.C. healthcare workers affected with COVID-19

A number of B.C. healthcare workers have tested positive for COVID-19.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday she knows how challenging it is when we are dealing with a new virus, a virus particularly for which we have no cure, no vaccine, and no way of preventing it that can cause severe illness in people that we love, people that we care for, and people that we are close to.

“So much, in the beginning, is unclear, but I want to say we do know so much more about this virus here and we know that hundreds of people have been safely cared for by our healthcare worker teams here in Vancouver, here in B.C., here in Canada over the last few months and we know that they’re safely cared for because of the dedication and the intense practice that we have in our health care worker system.”

Henry said about two dozen of our healthcare workers in British Columbia have been affected with COVID-19, and that she is relieved and happy to say that none of them have had severe illness.

348 cases including 77 new ones have been identified in BC. 19 of those are the Interior Health Authority and four in Northern Health.

Six people have fully recovered.

“I know that there’s been a lot of angst and a lot of concern that we’re not going to have the supplies that we need to best protect our healthcare workers across the spectrum whether it’s pre-hospital care, in home care, whether it’s our community physicians, whether it’s our hospitals or our long-term care homes, and I want to say that right now we have been working on this across the province and across the country and we do have the supplies that we need right now and we are committed to doing everything that we can to make sure that we continue to have what we need to best protect everybody in our healthcare system right now, and that’s my personal commitment as well,” Henry said.

All restaurants unless providing take out and or delivery have now been ordered to close.