B.C.’s top doctor says the number of COVID-19 cases linked to an outbreak in Kelowna is expected to increase in the coming days.
However, Dr. Bonnie Henry says its hard to know just how many people could end up getting infected.
“Some recent data has shown – from a number of other countries – that household contacts, so if I live in a household with somebody who tests positive, the chance of my getting sick is about 14 to 15 per cent,” she said Friday. “If we’re a community contact, its much less than that.”
As of Friday, there were 35 people who tested positive linked to the Kelowna outbreak, and public health officials are tracking hundreds of other people who may have been exposed.
“Somewhere between 10 and 15 per cent of people may develop symptoms in the coming weeks,” Henry said, noting that health officials are working to contact trace as quickly as possible.
“So we’ve had the first group of cases that we found [two weeks ago] and then we found the people they were in contact with. So that’s the second generation, and some of those people are now starting to get sick,” Henry said. “We’re now in the third generation of the people that they had contact with. So if we can find everybody quickly, we can stop that next generation from being exposed.”
Henry says most of the cases are people from Interior Health, with one case reported in Island Health, as nine spread across Vancouver Coastal and the Fraser Health Authorities.
Interior Health also confirmed that six employees at Kelowna General Hospital have cases of COVID-19, with the cases connected to the cluster of cases in the community from early July.
Health officials are expected to provide an update during a press conference at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
Dr. Henry urging young people to party safe
Henry is also asking people who plan to attend parties to do the right thing and socialize safely.
“The parties in Kelowna were mostly done with the right intent. They were small numbers of people but it was different people every night so that’s what made it challenging,” Henry said. “I do think its important that we get out, that we socialize. Those connections are things we need, particularly young people.”
“This is a time in their life where those social connections are so important.”
But Henry notes that its important to ensure that people party in a way that does not lead to a rapid increase in the number of cases like what is happening right now.
“There were a number of parties with different people and then they went to different restaurants, and it just makes it challenging to connect all the dots. Its so much easier if we are able to find people quickly, so I do think we can continue to have these social interactions, but we need to try and do it in a way that protects all of us,” Henry said.
“What we talked about was telling people about keeping things small, making sure we have a way to contact people. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to call somebody up and tell them that they were exposed to this virus, we do that in public health.”
