By Fran Yanor / Legislative Reporter
Adults under 40 years-old now account for most of the new COVID-19 cases and many are related to private parties and workplace exposures that occurred over the last month, the Province’s top health officer said last week.
“In all of these cases, the common factors are really the same,” said Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry from Victoria. “It’s about the things that we’re doing when we’re in close contact with people.”
Transmission typically occurs when people are talking, joking around, sharing drinks, sharing food, and being in crowds, said Henry.
“So, larger combinations of people where we’re having those close interactions with many people over a period of time, often indoors,” she said. “The indoor settings we know are areas that are more at risk for us to be transmitting this virus to others.”
As of Aug. 6, a total of 3,934 people in B.C. had tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Of those, 93 have been diagnosed in the north. In the province, 581 were active cases with 10 active cases in Northern Health.
In July, previous community outbreaks occurred around Kelowna and on Haida Gwaii, but now about 90 per cent of the province’s active cases involve people in Vancouver, and the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser health authorities.
“The past month has been a more difficult month for us in terms of cases,” said Health Minister Adrian Dix. The province has seen about 36 or 37 new cases per day for the past several days, Dix said on Aug. 4, numbers higher than in June.
Many of the most recent new cases involve people at private parties in overlapping social circles who have passed it to their friends and family, said Henry.
A party involving about 45-plus people in Vancouver Coastal resulted in public health tracing about 400 related contacts.
“That’s our warning right now,” said Henry on Aug. 6. “That’s where we’re seeing the virus get a chance to transmit to potentially large numbers of people.”
Currently, about 1,500 people are in quarantine across the province. “A good proportion of them are related to those types of social settings,” Henry said.
Dix suggested people reconsider party invitations.
“If you’re being invited to a private party, and you don’t know who’s there… and you don’t know the numbers,” said Dix, “I strongly urge you not to attend.”
For people who wish to host private parties, he said, “This is the time to keep numbers small.”
The 20 to 29 year-olds and 30 to 39 year-olds are now leading other age groupings for the highest number of positive COVID-19 cases.
While some is the result of partying, it’s also a reflection of the demographic of employees working in the retail, restaurant and fruit packing industries, said Henry.
Exposure events are listed on the BCCDC.CA website: bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/public-exposures
“We need to immediately limit our time with others if we were at one of the events where that exposure happened,” Henry said.
Rather than being alarmed at the number of exposure events, Henry says the information should be reassuring.
“When public health teams or businesses issue alerts, it shows us that our monitoring and our public health response is working,” she said, “because we have identified the source of transmission and know who may be exposed.”
So far, public health officials have been able to trace almost all new cases back to their exposure, said Henry.
“For the most part, we are able to find everybody in a very short period of time,” Henry said.
Most concerning are cases that appear out of nowhere that aren’t linked or connected, she said. “And so far, those have been very, very low.”
But Henry cautioned British Columbians to keep up public health protocols wherever they go.
“And if public health tells you that your close contact and you need to stay home, then that’s an order. You must do that,” she said. “That’s what will keep all of us safe.”
Fran Yanor / Local Journalism Initiative / The Rocky Mountain Goat / [email protected]
