Dr. Bonnie Henry, July 27.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/BC Government
July 27, 2020 - 3:36 PM
If you're planning to have a party at a short term rental, keep it to your nearest and dearest — the rules for mass gatherings have tightened up, B.C.'s top doctor said today, July 27.
"As you know, we've been focusing on taking actions in areas where we know there has been transmission, and where transmission continues to occur," Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer, said, noting last week she modified orders around restaurants, pubs and nightclubs and this is the follow-up.
"I've amended the order on mass gatherings, to limit the number of people in short term rentals and vacation accommodations," Dr. Henry said.
The order covers places like houses that are being rented out, boat rentals, cabins, yurts, as well as hotel rooms.
"The number of people is limited to the capacity of the space, plus up to a maximum of five visitors," she said. "That means you cannot have a large group of people over to party in your hotel room or on your boat."
The responsibility to enforce these rules will fall on the owner of the property, and to ensure contact tracing information must be collected for everyone, guests and visitors alike.
"This means that should somebody in your party have COVID-19 we are able to contact you all quickly and efficiently to prevent ongoing spread in our communities," she said.
These new orders are related to a surge of cases of COVID-19 in B.C. for the last two weeks, and the uptick in cases continued on this weekend.
From Friday until today there were 81 new cases that tested positive for COVID-19.
That raises the total in British Columbia to 3,500 cases.
That includes 1,064 people in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 1,800 people in the Fraser Health region, 143 people in Vancouver Island health, 353 people in the Interior Health region and 80 people in Northern Health.
There are 60 British Columbians who reside outside of Canada with COVID-19.
There are now now 264 active cases in British Columbia, 11 people in hospital, and three who are in critical care.
Two more people died from COVID-19 this weekend, both were residents in long term care in Vancouver coastal bringing our total to 193 people who died from COVID-19.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Kathy Michaels or call 250-718-0428 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.
News from © iNFOnews, 2020