Photo: Contributed
Spring Valley Care Center
About three-quarters of the BC outbreaks of COVID-19 in senior nursing homes are currently happening in Kelowna, but with vaccination widespread in these facilities, this is no longer the problem it once was.
On Friday, Interior Health’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Albert de Villiers that the last reported outbreak at the Spring Valley Care Center has risen to 16 residents and five employees who have contracted the virus. When Interior Health announced the outbreak on Wednesday, only one resident and one employee had tested positive.
Two other active outbreaks remain in Kelowna at the Sandalwood Retirement Resort, where 24 residents and two employees tested positive, and the Cottonwoods Care Center, where 26 residents and three employees have contracted the disease.
But Dr. De Villiers said most of the cases they found were asymptomatic as the vast majority of the residents of these houses were vaccinated.
“In some of our long-term care facilities we have 85 to 95 percent” [vaccine] Coverage and in some places even 100 percent, ”said Dr. De Villiers. “Some people choose not to have a vaccine at this point.”
This could explain why two Cottonwoods residents and one Sandalwood resident died during recent outbreaks of COVID-19, but Dr. de Villiers has not confirmed whether the deceased have been vaccinated.
While Dr. De Villiers says most cases of these outbreaks are asymptomatic, four of the eight outbreaks in active care homes and independent living facilities in the province are in the Interior Health region and 76 of the 101 cases in the province of outbreaks are in active care facilities in Kelowna. Dr. de Villiers attributes this to the way IH continues to classify outbreaks.
“Various health authorities have at this stage [are] take it a little different, ”he said. “We really stayed with what we were doing up to now, so if you look at that in Keremeos, there is only one resident and one staff [who’ve tested positive] there and it’s been like that for quite a while so maybe they wouldn’t really have called this an outbreak in another health agency.
“We also do everything we can to test everyone in the long-term care facility as soon as we get a case. We test everyone else to make sure they are asymptomatic cases. And other regions may not necessarily do so, so our numbers may look a little bigger. “
Dr. de Villiers said the Cottonwoods outbreak has not seen any new cases in a while and “if all goes well,” the outbreak will be explained next week.
Residents and long-term care and assisted living staff received initial vaccinations for COVID-19, and the vast majority across the province have now been vaccinated. As a result, COVID-19 hospital stays and deaths at these facilities have decreased dramatically.
Dr. de Villiers noted that asymptomatic people who contract the virus can still pass it on to others, but the chance of transmission is reduced.
