A COVID-19 outbreak has been declared on the fifth floor of the Joseph & Rosalie Segal Family Health Centre (Segal Centre) at Vancouver General Hospital after two clients tested positive for COVID-19.
The unit is closed to new admissions and transfers at this time. All non-essential visits to the Segal Centre have been suspended until the outbreak measures have been lifted; the exception being for compassionate visits at the end of life.
Vancouver Coastal Health has immediately implemented strict infection prevention and control protocols to prevent further transmission of COVID-19. These include:
Careful monitoring of patients, staff and physicians
Enhanced cleaning and disinfection of all high-touch surfaces
Closing the units to patient admissions and transfers
Cohorting of staff to the affected areas
Self-monitoring or self-isolation of staff/physicians as part of Public Health contact tracing
Suspension of visitors to the unit (with exemptions for end-of-life situations)
Just over 13 million hectares of old forests remain in B.C., according to provincial data. The report notes as much as 80 per cent of that land consists of smaller trees with lower commercial value.
A statement from the Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation Ministry says employment has been created in B.C. in each of the last 10 months and the province has one of the strongest economies in Canada.
Dr. Supriya Sharma says Health Canada has a "really low threshold" for adverse events that could trigger a pause on the use of a vaccine and wouldn't hesitate to do so if something warranted it.
"These are things that we have to take into account so that yes, we're looking to try and encourage everyone to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, but we're not discriminating and bringing in unfairness in the process at the same time," Trudeau said Friday at a press conference alongside health officials.
One year into the pandemic, Canada's job market is 599,100 jobs short of where it was in February of last year, or 3.1 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
Canada has been a controlled-risk country for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, since 2007. One of the criteria for the change is for Canada to show that infected domestic animals were born more than 11 years prior.
