The focus of BC Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry was on workers who provide the care and the service to people in Long Term Care to be able to work at a single facility.
Henry said this is something they’ve have recognized in Public Health in the very beginning of this outbreak and from outbreaks every year whether it’s influenza, or gastral intestinal outbreaks, the challenge that we have with care providers and healthcare workers of all kinds needing to work at multiple different facilities makes it such a challenge to try and control outbreaks and that has been brought to the forefront during this pandemic.
“As of today it’s official”, Henry said, “We have been using orders under both the Public Health Act that I’ve given and under the Emergency Programs Act to implement a process to make it possible for care workers, healthcare workers of all kinds to work at a single site only”.
Dr. Henry added that this weekend is not the time to travel and that it’s important we continue to stay at home.
“As I’ve been saying all week we are not over the hump yet and we are going to have a bumpy ride for awhile. We’re holding our own and we’re keeping it down but we all need to continue to do this and going into this long weekend it’s more important than ever that we keep going, that everything we are doing now we keep up”.
The Provincial total of people tested positive for COVID-19 is now 1370 with 858 having fully recovered.
Today 34 new test positive cases in BC have been identified with two additional deaths bringing the total to 50.
Of the Province’s test positive cases 130 have been identified in the Interior Health Region and 24 in Northern Health.