‘COHORT QUARANTINE’
Plan could lure NHL teams
VICTORIA B.C. is considering a plan to quarantine entire teams together, in an attempt to match Alberta’s bid to become one of two hub sites if the National Hockey League season resumes in the summer.
Public health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Thursday she thinks Alberta’s “cohort quarantine” proposal to isolate entire teams in hotels near a hockey rink could work in British Columbia.
“We certainly have been talking about how it could be done safely in British Columbia, as well,” said Henry.
“I do see how we could potentially have small numbers of people cohorting together in self-isolation, for example in a hotel, and management monitored regularly. And I know if anybody could do that, then the NHL is probably set up to do it. I can see how we could have something like that work in British Columbia, as well.”
But Henry said she has yet to hear directly from the NHL about the idea.
“The bottom line is, I haven’t seen any proposal, certainly not any written proposal by the NHL, about how this could be proposed to work.”
Vancouver Canucks chief operating officer Trent Carroll was in meetings all day and couldn’t go into detail on their plan.
“We’ve been working all along to develop a plan with the B.C. government, Dr. Bonnie Henry and the NHL,” Carroll said in a statement. “We all want to see hockey come to Vancouver this summer, and our plan will make sure we do this in a way that keeps British Columbians safe and healthy.”
While B.C. waits for communication from the NHL, the Alberta government on Wednesday sent a proactive plan to the league that it said would balance the risk of inviting international hockey players into the province during a pandemic with the economic benefits of being a host city as the NHL resumes operations.
Alberta’s “cohort quarantine” proposal appeared designed to satisfy the NHL’s demand to have entire teams — and in some cases more than one team — quarantine en masse together so that they can practise and play during that twoweek period.
“I want to be clear, we are not talking about waiving the quarantine requirements,” Alberta chief medical health officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw said Wednesday.
“What we’ve put together is an opportunity for a cohort quarantine, which would mean a group that came in from international travel, such as an individual team, would have to stay together in that quarantine period and would not be able to interact with others outside of that cohort group.”
League officials have made clear that a strict two-week quarantine would make Vancouver, Toronto and Edmonton ineligible in their bids to become one of two hub sites for 12-team conference playdowns this summer, because the league doesn’t believe players should be confined to their hotel rooms for such a long period of time.
B.C. Premier John Horgan has refused to push for an exemption to the two-week quarantine, citing the province’s ongoing concerns about keeping the U.S. border closed to non-essential travel.
The mass quarantine proposal appears to be a compromise between the two positions. Alberta insists it’s safe.
“The size of that cohort group, whether it’s one team or two teams that could potentially allow play, they would be effectively sealed off from the rest of the community and there would be no interaction between them and the rest of the
community, which with respect to public safety, is the consideration that we take most seriously,” said Hinshaw.
Alberta’s proposal further envisions a kind of district in Edmonton around Rogers Place arena, where three full hotels are blocked off, pathways to the arena secured, and a zone created that keeps entire teams and players from contact with the public for the first two weeks — potentially longer if there are COVID-19 outbreaks.
Horgan said Wednesday that the NHL wouldn’t resume play until mid-July, which gives B.C. officials time to reassess the situation. But he cautioned against too many compromises.
“If we can do that and continue to focus on trying to bring hockey back to Vancouver, we’ll do so,” he said. “But the rules are in place. They’re national rules that we fought hard to have put in place. I’m not going to ask for those to be bent today on the prospect of games potentially being played eight weeks from now.”