Interior Health’s says an outbreak of COVID-19 that affected temporary foreign workers at a West Kelowna agricultural business is now over.
Medical Health Officer Dr. Silvina Mema says the successful conclusion of the outbreak at Bylands Nurseries is the result of co-operation from management as well as the workers who were quarantined on-site.
The outbreak began on March 28 and the first 14 cases – among the group of 63 temporary foreign and 12 local workers – were confirmed on March 31. Interior Health later said that 23 employees tested positive for the virus.
“The source of this outbreak is unclear,” Mema said. “We believe that some workers who came into Canada later during March may have been incubating the disease when they came in.”
“This was before the provincial health officer order to quarantine anybody who was coming from abroad.”
She says the nursery is ready to return to full operations, in compliance with the measures laid out by provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry.
“The measures we implemented were self-isolation of the workers appropriately in housing that was appropriate for the needs that they had at the time, provisional food so that they didn’t have to go out and enhanced cleaning and disinfection measures,” Mema said.
And Dr. Mema says there were no community cases related to the Bylands outbreak.