Interior Health said they have taken a stance to not confirm the specific locations of COVID-19 cases, as all communities should be taking the necessary precautions and preventing potential risks of exposure.
MyEastKootenayNow.com and Vista Radio have a policy during the Canadian COVID-19 outbreak to only confirm case locations if provided directly and specifically from the health authority, in this case, Interior Health.
Speaking to Interior Health, they said they will not identify those locations unless they have too.
“The provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has explained that she will not be identifying the specific location of confirmed cases unless public health providers cannot be certain they have reached all those who need to be contacted and who, therefore, might be a risk to the public,” Interior Health told MyEastKootenayNow.com.
“We need everybody to be aware that the risk is not just in one place. It’s in your community, too. People need to be taking the same measures now everywhere in B.C. and across Canada and, quite frankly, globally, right now.”
Speaking with Doug Clovechok, the MLA for Columbia River Revelstoke told MyEastKootenayNow.com that everyone should be taking COVID-19 seriously, being rational, but taking serious measures to prevent any potential spread.
“We all have to take this thing incredibly seriously,” said Clovechok. “We can’t avoid it.”
“We can beat this thing, we’re the masters of our own destiny when it comes to this virus but if we don’t follow the rules that have been constantly told us the last two or three weeks – there’s still people high-fiving each other and shaking hands, I saw it yesterday, you got to stop doing that.”
Clovechok reinforced the message from Dr. Henry that if people are sick, they need to stay home, while all others must get serious about social distancing and taking the appropriate measures to protect themselves and others.
“We just can’t panic, we just have to stay calm, practice the social isolation and the social distancing, Dr. Bonnie Henry has underscored that,” said Clovechok. “I can’t emphasize that enough to people, we need to play by the rules here and if you see somebody that isn’t, politely tell them to stop doing what they’re doing because that’s how we’re going to look after each other.”
Dr. Henry recently spoke in her daily media briefings about stopping the spread of COVID-19 and assume that the virus is in your community, so that people take the preventative measures seriously.
“This is being transmitted very rapidly. It doesn’t serve anybody to think that it’s not — it won’t affect me. It’s not in my community. It won’t affect my family. We know people travel back from all over the place. We know that we can’t always tell everybody that has this disease,” said Dr. Henry. “The precautions that we’re putting out are for everybody in every community across B.C. right now, so that we can stop the transmission everywhere in our communities here today.”
As of their most recent update on Thursday, British Columbia has 271 cases of COVID-19, which includes 12 cases in Interior Health. A total of eight people have died in B.C. from the virus.
