COVID outcomes differed at two large B.C. events
Virus surged after dental convention, but held in check at rugby tournament
VANCOUVER Two big events with thousands of attendees took place in Vancouver in early March.
One of them has been fingered as having been a major source of B.C.’S COVID-19 outbreak, and even drew criticism from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry for having taken place at all.
The other took place with the full endorsement of public health officials and appears not to have been a significant cause of infections.
So what’s the difference between the Pacific Dental Conference, held March 5-7 at the Vancouver Convention Centre, and the Canada Sevens international rugby tournament, held March 7-8 at B.C. Place Stadium?
Both crowded thousands of people together for long periods of time over several days. Given everything we have learned about how the novel coronavirus is spread — sustained proximity to infected people spewing droplets into the air, especially if it happens indoors — it might seem illogical that only one of the events was a problem, both in hindsight and ahead of time.
Three months later, it’s clear the venue did matter, Henry says. So did who was attending the events, and where they had travelled from.
Like every event happening in the province at that time, they had to perform a risk assessment with officials from the local health authority, in this case Vancouver Coastal Health.
“It was a very detailed process that we were going through with each event,” Henry said on Monday. “We felt the Rugby Sevens wasn’t a high-risk event, given the clientele who were going to be attending.”
That assessment included looking at factors like the scale of the event, where attendees were coming from, how much opportunity they had to mingle, the differences between meeting in small rooms or sitting and walking about a large stadium, how meals were consumed, and the age and demographics of those attending, Henry explained in a followup email.
The dental conference carried much higher risks, since not only did it feature many meetings and sessions in small rooms, it also had people circulating in a large trade show and at a large dinner. The attendees were also mostly healthcare workers who had travelled from all over the world, and most of the dental conference attendees were staying in hotels, creating a risk of spreading the virus beyond the convention centre.
By contrast, while some rugby fans had travelled from the United States and elsewhere, most of the fans were local. And so most headed home at night, not to hotels.
And in comparison to the rugby crowd, the dental crowd was much older.
Meanwhile, the participating rugby teams had played in Los Angeles the week before and had undergone a round of precautionary COVID-19 testing then.
For the tournament, B.C. Place added hand-sanitizing stations around the building and removed things like touch screens for fan surveys.