B.C.’s health minister says there has been a lot of interest in new contact tracing jobs that were announced by the province three weeks ago.
Adrian Dix says the province will now hire 608 contact tracers instead of the previously announced 500 with over 2,600 people having already expressed an interest in the job.
“More than 600 of them have met the qualifications. A significant number have already been hired, others are at the interview stage,” he said. “That is proceeding and we will be meeting those targets in terms of hiring new people to work in contact tracing.”
“We’re talking in many cases about retired nurses and even retired physicians who are coming back into the field to assist the public healthcare system in this time of pandemic. It demonstrates their commitment to our province and I think the strength of our public healthcare system.”
These new positions will be in place until at least the end of March next year, though it could be extended, Dix says, if needed.
“Its part of our continuing effort to prepare for what we need to prepare for in the coming few months. That will involve efforts of course to reduce the transmission of influenza in B.C., needless to say of COVID-19 as well,” he added. “The success of our hiring in terms of contact tracing is a demonstration of that.”
The Ministry of Health is working with Health Match BC and the health authorities to manage the recruitment process.
As of Friday, B.C. had reported 6,162 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, 1,233 of which were active cases.