A total of 52 new test positive cases for COVID-19 were identified from Saturday to today bringing the Province’s total to 1699.
Since Saturday Interior Health has seen an increase of 3 bringing the total to 153 and 5 more in Northern Health for a total of 39.
In today’s (Monday) update BC’s provincial Health Officer, DR. Bonnie Henry spoke about t the outbreak of COVID-19 at the Kearl Lake oil sands project north of Fort McMurray saying they’ve identified 7 people coming back to BC that they’ve directly identified to that, and additional people are ongoing and being tested.
“We know from our colleagues in Albert that an ongoing outbreak investigation is happening in that community and there are concerns about people who may have traveled to other Provinces as well as here to British Columbia”. “Right now I am ordering anybody who has been in the Kearl Lake oil sands project since March 15th and has returned into BC that they must self-isolate for 14-days after their return. If they had symptoms during that period of time or they continue to have symptoms, we want you to connect with 8-1-1 and tell us about that as well, anybody who has returned in the past 2 weeks must continue to self-isolate until the incubation period has passed”.
Dr. Bonnie Henry said she has been asked many questions about how things are going to change and when.
She said we are not yet through this storm, we must remain vigilant and their testing strategy is part of that.
“We can only make those changes that we want and need to do when we have a sustained downward trend in people who are getting sick with COVID-19 in our Province. And as we’ve said, we are not expecting any changes in April and if we look at the trajectory and the modeling that we presented we’re looking at the middle of May if things continue to go the way they have been going”.
The Provincial total of test-positive cases is 1699 with 1039 people fully recovering.
There were 5 added deaths over the weekend bringing the total to 86.