A note to our readers

It was with poor judgment the Penticton Herald and The Daily Courier published an article Friday, March 13, 2020, which speculated about the possible death toll from COVID-19 in local communities.

While it was our intent to alert readers to the seriousness of this pandemic, the manner in which we did it was flawed and caused unnecessary fear. The article did not meet journalistic standards.

We regret any undue stress we caused during these anxious times.

We reached out to Interior Health to help set the record straight but were told no one was available to talk Monday. Instead, we were sent a transcript of comments made by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry at a press conference March 13 during which she addressed the Herald’s story.

“People may have been doing some blue sky, back-of-the-envelope estimations based . . . on some of the models that are based on the early phase in Wuhan, for example, where there was a rapid increase in people being infected,” said Henry.

“But even then, once you put in measures that slow things down, drag things out, make sure that we do our best at prevention and detecting cases and clusters and preventing spread from people we know have the disease, we can affect that so that we don’t see those types of numbers.”

The Herald and The Daily Courier value the trust readers place in us, and we will work hard to restore it. In the meantime, please accept our apologies and know that we will do better.