No Interior care home residents have contracted COVID-19

Photo: Britt Janz

Orchard Manor care home back in April.

There remains active declared outbreaks at four long-term care homes across the Interior, but no resident of any care homes across the entire health authority has contracted the virus to date.

On Friday, Interior Health confirmed a second outbreak has been declared at Kelowna's Orchard Manor, after a single staff member tested positive for COVID-19. An outbreak was declared at the same care home back in April when a single staff member contracted the disease, but the virus never spread to anyone else in the home.

Orchard Manor is connected to Hawthorn Park, and the two facilities have 161 long-term care beds. 

Currently, outbreaks are also declared at Kelowna's Sun Pointe Village, Kamloops' Hamlets at Westsyde and Penticton's Village by the Station.

Each outbreak involves a single staff member, except for Sun Pointe Village, where two staff members have tested positive.

All care home staff in B.C. are only working at a single facility to reduce the risk of widespread transmission of the virus, after the province implemented new measures earlier this year.

Visits to these long-term care homes have been temporarily suspended as a precaution.

Outbreaks have been declared in long-term care homes when just one person associated with the facility contracts the disease, as a precaution due to the elevated risks residents face. More than 200 of the province's 321 deaths have been residents of long-term care homes. 

Meanwhile, an outbreak among workers at Kamloops' Royal Inland Hospital has grown to 11 cases.