A COVID-19 outbreak was declared at Richmond Hospital on Saturday, with two cases confirmed as of 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Earlier reports – which Dr. Bonnie Henry likely based her information at Tuesday's daily briefing on the COVID-19 situation across the province – indicated there was only one case.
Updates on the Richmond Hospital outbreak will be given at Henry’s daily updates on the COVID-19 situation.
An outbreak is declared by the medical health officer.
According to VCH, there is no evidence of risk to patients elsewhere in the hospital including anyone going to the emergency department. The emergency department remains open, and VCH said it is safe for all patients.
The response is being led by a medical health officer to ensure appropriate precautions are in place, VCH said in a statement, adding there are strict infection control protocols that follow any outbreak.
This includes restricting staff from working in other locations within the hospital or other health-care facilities, enhanced deep cleaning and personal protective equipment for all patient interactions.
Dr. Meena Dawar, Richmond’s medical health officer, has suggested some postponed medical procedures might be brought back, but with this outbreak, Henry said they will have to proceed with caution.
Henry said more details will be coming out this week about bringing back elective surgeries, diagnostic imaging and other procedures that have been scaled back, but the outbreak will be taken into consideration in any plans.
“Any facility that has an outbreak will be treated differently – as we know, we need to be very cautious about that,” she told the Richmond News.
How they will be brought back will depend on the investigation at the hospital that will take place over the coming days, Henry added.
As of Tuesday, there were 849 cases in VCH – the health authority has reported that about 10 per cent of cases have been in Richmond over the past few weeks.
On Monday, Dr. Bonnie Henry reported there were 53 new cases that tested positive for COVID-19 in B.C. over the last two days. There were 77 cases in hospital across the province.
In total 2,224 people have tested positive for COVID-19.
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