COVID-19 outbreaks at two Central Okanagan seniors’ care homes are growing.
With the entire Central Okanagan currently a hotspot for a fourth wave of the virus, and subject to enhanced regional restrictions, Interior Health says 22 cases of COVID-19 have now been reported at West Kelowna’s Brookhaven Care Center—five residents and 17 staff.
On Aug 5, four residents there were reported as testing positive and nine staff members.
Across the lake at Cottonwoods Care Center in Kelowna, there are now 10 cases reported — seven residents and three staff, up from just four cases among residents on Aug. 5.
And the overall picture is not getting any better across the Central Okanagan, where there has been a provincially ordered return to restrictions on mask-wearing in indoor public spaces, limits on gathering sizes, restrictions on restaurant operations and the closure of some businesses altogether because of the growing number of COVID-19 infections.
New cases in the Central Okanagan are now almost all the Delta variant of the virus and provincial officials say it is mainly unvaccinated people in the 20- to 40-year-old age range who are becoming infected.
Earlier this week, a local oncologist at Kelowna General Hospital, Dr. Gareth Eeson took to Twitter saying he felt awful that one of his patients, as well as other KGH patients, had their scheduled treatments canceled because of a lack of available beds at KGH.
“Our hospital is swamped with Covid patients,” Eeson wrote, adding they are “almost entirely unvaccinated.”
Situations such as that have promoted more people to speak out and urge the unvaccinated to get the vaccine, not only for their own health but for the health of others in the community.
Another local physician, Dr. Megan Hill, also took to Twitter this week to say she has seen firsthand that people filling KGH beds suffering from COVID-19 are not vaccinated. She said making that public is helping make more people aware and prompting some to go and get the vaccine.
“We need to keep having these talks,” she wrote. “Until it’s done.”
Earlier this week Kelowna city council members publicly urged area residents who are not been fully vaccinated to get the vaccine.
Several councillors spoke about both the health issues at stake and the impact the decision by some to stay unvaccinated is having on the local economy as the regional restrictions compound the impact felt by so many businesses over the last 18 months during what would typically be the busy tourist season in the Central Okanagan.
In a bid to try and get more people vaccinated, a mobile immunization clinic is being held this week at the Kelowna Yacht Club downtown from 3 pm to 7 pm today, tomorrow and Friday.
In addition, there will also be a mobile clinic at the Kelowna Farmers’ Market today from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm There are also ongoing clinics at Trinity Hall on Springfield Road in Kelowna (Monday to Sunday 8:30 am-3 pm and Thursdays 4-7 pm) and the Rutland Secondary School gymnasium (Monday to Friday 8:30 am-3 pm). An ongoing clinic is also set up at the Westbank Lions Community Centre, operating Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 3 pm
The province recently announced it had lowered the amount of time between getting the first and second dose of the vaccine to 28 days.
