‘Heartbroken’ British Columbians deserve answers about Post report on coronavirus in care homes, legislative assembly members tell minister

Name: 192 died in Vancouver care homes under policy that delayed Covid-19 outbreak declarations
Uploaded: 2021-05-18T20:27:23.000Z
Duration: 4 min 40 s
Description: 192 died in Vancouver care homes under policy that delayed Covid-19 outbreak declarations

Opposition leader Shirley Bond says the investigation, revealing 42 outbreaks and 192 deaths under a policy known as enhanced surveillance, was ‘devastating’

Bond and other assembly members ask why the policy was implemented, but BC health minister says a causal link with outbreaks ‘is not supported by the evidence’

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British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix and Dr Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer, speak to the media in Vancouver, British Columbia in January last year. Photo: AFP

Ian Young

Published: 4:27am, 19 May 2021Updated: 11:45am, 20 May 2021

British Columbia’s handling of Covid-19 in long-term care homes has come under fire in the Canadian province’s legislative assembly, in the wake of a South China Morning Post investigation that revealed at least 192 residents had died in homes where outbreaks were deliberately not declared when an employee was first found to have contracted the virus.

In questions about the protocols that stretched over Monday and Tuesday, opposition leader Shirley Bond of the BC Liberals told Health Minister Adrian Dix that the report was “devastating”, and had “appalled” British Columbians.

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192 died in Vancouver care homes under policy that delayed Covid-19 outbreak declarations

But Dix said on Tuesday that “to make a causal link [between the protocols and outbreaks] is not supported by the evidence”, although “all of these decisions … will be the subject of questions in the future”.

The Post report published last Thursday described how BC health authorities implemented protocols on November 9 that outbreaks should not be declared if just one staff member of a care home tested positive for Covid-19 in circumstances deemed to present low risk of transmission.

The protocols, known as “enhanced surveillance” or “enhanced monitoring”, were intended to preserve staffing resources and allow residents to continue to enjoy visits and other social interactions, health authorities have said.