Dale Boyd
Osoyoos Times
The outbreak of COVID-19 declared at a West Kelowna nursery involving temporary foreign workers is over, according to Interior Health (IH) officials.
The outbreak was declared by IH on March 28 after two individuals linked to 63 migrant workers at Bylands Nurseries Ltd. tested positive for COVID-19.
Following a provincial health order, 63 workers were quarantined on the site, and 31 individuals were tested over the weeks since the outbreak, with 23 of those testing positive.
There were 12 Canadian workers put under quarantine as well, seven of whom were tested and none were symptomatic. There were no cases spread to the broader community in West Kelowna and surrounding areas according to medical health officer with Interior Health, Dr. Silvina Mema.
Mema said the hard work and commitment of the nursery workers and owners, as well as IH’s infection control and environmental health experts, were critical to the containment and conclusion of the outbreak — also thanking the community of West Kelowna for its support.
“All our guidance was followed and that’s what led to this outbreak being declared over today,” Mema said.
The source of the outbreak is unclear, Mema said, but IH suspects the transmission occurred through workers incubating the virus while travelling in March, prior to provincial and federal orders to self-isolate for all individuals travelling from abroad.
“Our hypothesis is that one or more of the workers that came in March could have been incubating the disease when they arrived. We weren’t able to pinpoint an individual person as the index case, but we strongly think that was the case,” Mema said.
None of the workers were in roles that interacted with customers and members of this group had very minimal contact in the community.
“The best evidence we have for that is we haven’t seen cases arise from West Kelowna that could be linked to this particular outbreak, so we are very confident that there wasn’t community spread as a result of this outbreak,” Mema said.
Bylands Nurseries carried out enhanced cleaning of all nursery, housing, sanitary and other facilities accessed by employees, IH said, and the business is ready to resume full operations, in compliance with the measures laid out for all businesses by the B.C. provincial health officer.
There are now requirements for isolation measures on all travelling across borders, but not for those seasonal workers travelling domestically, which is a concern for those in the Interior Health region, with a usual wave of domestic agricultural workers already arriving.
“We are in an agricultural area so we will be workers coming, not just for farm work but for silviculture, planting trees that were burned during the forest fires in previous years,” Mema said. “So there are guidelines that have been developed provincially to ensure workers that are coming in have the appropriate environment to prevent the transmission of the disease and most importantly for early detection of any case.”
She said the Interior Health Authority is actively working with the provincial government on how to best support workers and employers.
The BCCDC website is the recommended resource for accurate, current COVID-19 information for British Columbians.
