B.C.’s top doctor responded to concerns that health officials are refusing to release enough information about one of B.C.’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks.
Vancouver Coastal Health declared an outbreak at Little Mountain Place, a 117-bed long-term care facility for seniors in Vancouver’s Riley Park neighbourhood, back in November.
The health authority confirmed on Monday that 98 of the facility’s 114 residents had confirmed cases of COVID-19, along with 69 staff. There have also been 38 deaths due to complications linked to the virus at the facility.
Vancouver Coastal Health would not provide updated numbers about the outbreak, stating it did not want to cause unnecessary concern.
Speaking on Monday, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry called the outbreak at Little Mountain “incredibly lethal.”
Read more:
COVID-19 outbreaks declared at care homes in Surrey, Port Coquitlam and Qualicum Beach
In a statement to Global News, Vancouver Coastal Health said outbreak control measures have been adjusted to protect the safety of residents and staff and families of residents are given regular updates to ensure they have accurate information.
B.C. used to send out a daily list of all long-term care home outbreaks, including the number of cases and deaths, but that stopped a couple of months ago.
Read more:
COVID-19 outbreaks declared at two long-term care homes in Vernon, B.C.
Henry said as the number of cases in long-term outbreaks grew, health officials had to supply aggregate numbers on long-term care outbreaks on a daily basis and then periodically provide more detailed statistics.
“It’s not a policy change,” Henry said. “It was merely trying to keep up with the amount of data that we were trying to collect.”