Some farm workers are testing positive

Special to The Herald

Four of the more than 900 foreigners who’ve come to work recently on B.C. farms have tested positive upon landing for COVID-19.

The cases were identified among people flying into B.C. on four different flights in the last few weeks, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Wednesday.

All foreign farmhands, hundreds of whom are destined for the Okanagan, must remain in isolation for 14 days to make sure they don’t have the disease before being allowed to begin work in B.C.

“We’ve provided them with medical support, social support and accommodation to effectively quarantine them. Some of those people have finished their quarantines and are now going to farms across the province,” Henry said during her daily update on the COVID-19 situation in B.C.

In late March and early April, 23 foreign and Canadian workers associated with a West Kelowna agricultural business tested positive for COVID-19. They were ordered to self-isolate.

About 4,500 foreign farmworkers, mostly Mexicans, have worked seasonally in the Okanagan in recent years. The total number of arrivals this year is currently unknown.

Provincewide, there were 34 more COVID-19 cases reported in B.C. between Tuesday and Wednesday, bringing the total to 2,087. Of those, 169 patients are in the region served by

Interior Health.

Four additional deaths were reported, for a toll of 109 people. All the recent deaths were among residents of long-term care facilities in the Lower

Mainland.

Henry provided some additional detail on the second COVID-19 fatality in

Interior Health, first reported Tuesday. The man was in his 70s, and had contracted COVID-19 while abroad, she said.

“He had been in hospital for some time, and had acquired his COVID-19 whilst travelling outside Canada a number of weeks ago,” she said.

Currently, 89 British Columbians, including six in Interior Health, are being treated in hospital for COVID-19. That’s down from a peak count of 149 on April 6.

Details are to be provided soon on how specific businesses that were ordered closed because of the pandemic — such as hair salons, casinos, nightclubs, and restaurants — might be allowed to re-open.

“What we are putting in place, and what we will have more details about next week, is the process for providing the information to every sector about what are the parameters that you need to have in place to be able to safely open,” Henry said.

Businesses that were not ordered closed but did so anyway — such as bookstores, clothing stores and many other retail operations — will also receive “guidance” from public health officials on how to restart their businesses, Henry said.

“We need to have a provincial approach so that it’s a level playing field for everybody, and also so that we can build confidence because we, as consumers, there’s a lot of concerns still, and fear, about how this is going to work,” she said.

“And none of us want to see a sliding back to having outbreaks in our communities,” she said.

“It is part of my job, and part of our job in public health with the ministry, the government, to work with each (business) sector, to say ‘This is the guidance, and once you’ve met these conditions you can open safely.’”