Worst may be over at LTC home

A devastating outbreak of COVID19 at a South Okanagan long-term care home has been declared over.

“We are very thankful that the outbreak at McKinney Place (in Oliver) has been brought under control,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Monday.

“That was a very challenging outbreak in Interior Health, and we know 17 people at the McKinney Place community lost their lives to Covid in that outbreak,” Henry said.

Dozens of residents and staff at McKinney Place tested positive for COVID-19 since early December. The quick spread of the disease through the long-term facility was unlike the experience at any other care home in the Interior Health region.

By last week, only five of the 60 McKinney Place residents had not tested positive for COVID-19. At that point, 23 staff at McKinney Place had also tested positive for the disease.

There are still 48 active outbreaks in long-term care and assisted living facilities around B.C., Henry said.

From Friday through Monday, 1,330 more British Columbians, including 257 in the region served by Interior Health, tested positive for COVID-19.

But the daily average of 443 new cases continued a downward trend seen in new COVID-19 cases. In early December, about 800 cases a day were being reported provincewide.

Since immunizations against COVID-19 started in December, a total of 87,346 people have received the first of the two necessary vaccinations. The focus remains for now on residents and employees of longterm care facilities, Henry said.

The province is in a period of “hope and challenge,” Henry said, referring to the promise of the vaccine roll-out but also to the ongoing spread of COVID-19 around the province and the need for people to continue to observe pandemic-related health protocols.

“It is amazing to us that in such a short period of time that we can have a new technology that is 95% effective in protecting somebody from a new disease,” Henry said.

In April, access to the vaccine will be expanded “dramatically” to all people across B.C., she said.