UPDATED: 12:50 p.m.
Interior Health is asking for the public’s help to reduce pressure on COVID-19 testing sites, by requesting individuals only get tested when showing symptoms.
Recent positive cases in the Kelowna area have created major concerns for local residents, resulting in a high volume of calls and unscheduled visits to IH’s local testing centre.
“Interior Health has capacity to test individuals who need it, but we are reminding everyone that testing is NOT required for those who do not have symptoms,” reads the announcement.
They would also like to remind the public that anyone who is showing symptoms and requires testing must call ahead to book an appointment. Assessment and testing sites do not provide testing on a drop-in basis.
ORIGINAL: 12:10 p.m.
B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix confirmed Monday morning that the recent surge of cases in Kelowna was primarily the result of private parties held at two local resorts.
On Saturday, Interior Health (IH) announced individuals at Discovery Bay Resort from July 1-5 and Boyce Gyro Beach Lodge on July 1 may have come in contact with COVID-19.
The new cases involved people in Vancouver Coastal Health, Fraser Health and Interior Health, as discovered through public health contact tracing.
It was determined through the contact tracing process that one or more individuals from the resort parties visited the downtown Cactus Club and PACE Spin Studio, confirmed Dix. An advisory was issued on Sunday evening asking people who visited those locations on specific dates to self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms.
“We’ve raised issues around four sites in Kelowna and two resort hotels, but the main inciting incident, it would appear, were private parties held in those resort hotels,” says Dix.
He says the message to everybody is “pretty clear” regarding the responsibility of individuals and groups to maintain caution and decrease the risks associated with private events.
“I want to give a lot of credit to people in Kelowna, particularly the businesses in Kelowna who have been doing a very good job in a general sense, both in restaurants and in tourism, in addressing the needs of keeping tourists and everybody safe in Kelowna.
“But when people come together for private parties – in this case it’s largely people in their 20s and 30’s – the risks are considerably higher. They tend to be in enclosed spaces. They tend to involve people coming from different places, different walks of life, who may not know each other at all and the risks of those kinds of events are higher. It’s why we have limits on the overall sizes of gatherings, organized gatherings, but people I think have to show good judgement with respect to events.”
When asked whether the resorts should have demonstrated more care in preventing the parties from occurring, Dix reiterated the importance of taking personal responsibility for the decisions we make.
He says it is not only possible, but also critically important to follow provincial COVID-19 guidelines at gatherings such as maintaining physical distancing for the sake of the people closest to us.
“It’s important to understand that the most likely people we are going to transmit this virus to, if we become positive to COVID-19, are people that we love, and that should be reason to inspire us to follow the rules.
“This isn’t to make people’s lives less fun. This is about keeping the ones we love safe, and that’s a pretty good reason to do it.”
