High COVID-19 cases in Fraser Health attributed to number of essential workers living there
Fraser Health has been the recent epicentre of BC’s fall COVID-19 surge, consistently reporting the highest new daily case numbers out of the province’s five regional health authorities.
That could be in part because a high proportion of people who live there are essential workers and have been reporting for duty in-person to keep the province running, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Thursday.
“We have a huge number of concentrated risky environments and people who live in that area,” she said.
Those “risky environments” include workplaces such as hospitals, healthcare clinics, poultry processing plants, and other indoor agricultural environments that have seen outbreaks during the pandemic.
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Cases are tracked by where patients live, and infected people may live in Fraser Health but go to work in Vancouver Coastal Health or drive across the border to the US, Henry said.
One example of those who travel for work but live in Fraser Health includes many of BC’s transport truck drivers.
“It really is across Metro Vancouver that we’re seeing issues,” she said.
BC reported 425 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, with 268 in the Fraser Health region.
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