OK a lot of COVID-19 stuff has been happening today in Northern B.C. so here's my best attempt at gathering it into a single thread. #cityofPG#bcpoli
First the big news: a rapid-response team is in Fort St. James, two hours away from Prince George, as there is a major cluster of cases there. cbc.ca/news/canada/br…
This morning, BC Emergency Health Services said they'd been told 60 active cases in the community. I was told that number was accurate by a health care person in the community. But as of this afternoon, Northern Health says the active case count is approx. 40 active in Omineca
A number of shops are closing there in light of the numbers and First Nations-led schools and services are shutting down. I got this text from the mayor of Fort St. James - he doesn't have much info, or didn't this morning
At the afternoon briefing, we were told 39 active cases, and 20 are hospitalized. Anyways, point is: things are not great in Fort St. James. And this impacts Prince George because.....
Prince George's University Hospital of Northern B.C. is the COVID-19 primary care hospital for the region. As of YESTERDAY, all but one critical care bed was occupied.
Here are the numbers:
I went into far more detail about the critical care capacity in Northern B.C. in my reporting last week. Listen to the audio piece at the bottom if you want more granular details and remember - things have declined since. cbc.ca/news/canada/br…#cityofPG
Highlights, though, are: Staff is burnt out. Surge capacity is only for short-term emergencies and when you are at or near surge capacity for extended periods, the likelihood of burnout/mistakes/over-capacity increases. Some people are being sent to other regions
Big story number three: Contact tracing. Yesterday, I put out a story indicating contact tracers in the north are falling behind, in part because of this surge in cases. cbc.ca/news/canada/br…
Today, Northern Health confirms that contact tracers are backlogged and they are now changing how they prioritize who gets alerted about exposures to COVID-19.
Finally, the good news: Health official will finally start releasing localized data on a weekly basis as opposed to monthly, as they have been so far. We'll see if that makes a difference.
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1 in 25 people have COVID-19 in a small, rural community. Did residents get a warning from health officials? No, because that would violate "privacy". Instead they find out when an emergency team is deployed because local paramedics are overwhelmed #bcpolicbc.ca/news/canada/br…
Literally since the beginning of this pandemic local officials and First Nations have been pleading with the B.C. government to release more local health data in line with what people get in nearly every other province in Canada. There has been an outright refusal to do. Now this
I said this yesterday but you have to understand: Health officials would have seen case counts rising in Fort St. James. They would have seen it go from 1 in 50 people to 1 in 30 to 1 in 25 and still, nobody thought that the people who live there had a right to know #bcpoli
"With 60 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a community of roughly 1,500, BC Emergency Health Services has deployed a Major Incident Rapid Response Team to Fort St. James Wednesday, Dec. 9.
"This is the first time the team has been deployed, a BC EHS spokesperson said."
This was publicly posted by a doctor in Fort St James yesterday
The Nak'azdli Whut'en First Nation says they are now in 'shut down mode' given the high case counts in the Fort St. James area. A special emergency response team has been deployed to the community to help deal with COVID-19. #COVID19BC
Tomorrow I have a story coming out about DIY contact tracing. A teacher found out his child had been exposed to COVID last Tuesday, his wife had symptoms the same day and he had them Wednesday. But it wasn't until today that anyone else was notified by public health. #COVID19BC
Instead this couple took it upon themselves to reach out to colleagues and contacts. It means one person who was potentially exposed and contagious went into isolation a full week earlier than they would have had they waited for contact tracers.
The teacher also asked on Tuesday— when his wife was syptomatic and they knew their kid had been exposed — if he should stay home Wednesday. He was told no, but opted to anyways. It wasn't until Wednesday evening he showed syptoms, but he is confirmed to have had COVID-19.
14 workers test positive for COVID-19 at LNG Canada worksite in Kitimat, B.C. cbc.ca/1.5808832
There have been calls for work camps to shut down since the beginning of this crisis. The former head of the Northern Health Authority called them "essentially land locked cruise ships" alaskahighwaynews.ca/opinion/letter…
Instead, though, the province worked with industrial groups to put safety protocols in place. For LNG Canada's part, it reduced its workforce by about 50 per cent to reduce contacts for those remaining in camp cbc.ca/1.5500429
There is now a COVID-19 outbreak at Peace Villa in Fort St. John. This is the second care home outbreak in Northern B.C. Two people have already died at Rotary Manor in Dawson Creek where an outbreak is still active. #yxj#ydq
Northern Health says it's a single staff member with no evidence of transmission, which is exactly what was said when an outbreak was declared at Rotary Manor which spread to multiple staff members and residents and has killed at least two
So this is why rising COVID case counts are worth paying attention to, not just hospitalizations. Here's what B.C.'s Peace region looked like at the end of October. In the weeks since the virus has made its way into two care homes and at least two residents have died.