Temporary foreign workers in Okanagan test positive for coronavirus in first large community outbreak
Posted April 1, 2020 9:43 am.
Last Updated April 1, 2020 9:44 am.
KELOWNA (NEWS 1130) – The first large community outbreak of COVID-19 in B.C. involves more than a dozen temporary foreign workers on a farm in the Okanagan.
The province’s public health officer said they all worked at the Bylands Nursery in West Kelowna.
“So this business has been closed to customers,” Dr. Bonnie Henry said. “Interior Health became aware of a number of workers there with respiratory illness and a number of them have now tested positive for COVID-19.”
Henry noted all the infected workers are now in isolation but added it could take more than two weeks to figure out if anyone outside that community was exposed.
“These people were being isolated in that they weren’t going out into the community because they had come in from another country. But, there was some considerable mixing on the farm when they were working together,” she explained.
Henry said it’s believed the community outbreak at the West Kelowna business was caught “relatively early.”
“But, people right now who are not sick have been exposed to some of those people who are, they have a probability of becoming ill over the next two weeks,” she added.
The farm workers were among the 43 new cases of coronavirus reported by the province on Tuesday.
