Sechelt is among the coastal communities with confirmed cases of COVID-19, but health officials said late Monday there were still no cases on the Sunshine Coast involving community spread – transmission of the virus from an unknown source.
“We have been unable to share this information due to public health policy, but we … had the feeling it was only a matter of time before this information came out,” Dr. Daren Spithoff, a member of the Sunshine Coast COVID Physician Task Force, told Coast Reporter.
He was responding to a Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) memorandum to “all Coastal staff and physicians” dated March 16 that included Sechelt as one of the rural communities in the VCH region with confirmed cases of the virus.
The memorandum said the affected people are self-isolating at home, along with their household members, and are recovering.
“To protect patient confidentiality and because the situation is changing on a daily basis, we will not be sharing the number of people in each community who have received positive test results,” it said.
The memorandum, which was widely shared on social media Monday, also listed Powell River as an affected community, but VCH told the Powell River Peak newspaper that the memorandum was “erroneous.” As of Tuesday, no confirmed cases had been reported in Powell River.
Other communities named in the memorandum were Squamish and Pemberton.
On Saturday, the Village of Pemberton confirmed that two people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Pemberton. Pique Newsmagazine reported that people who were inside the Pemberton & District Community Centre building on March 11 between 2:30 and 8 p.m. were being advised to monitor for symptoms.
On Sunday, the Squamish Chief newspaper reported that a Squamish resident had self-identified as having COVID-19 and has been in self-isolation since March 10.
The Sechelt information will be included as part of the Tuesday community update by the Sunshine Coast task force, Dr. Spithoff said.
In its first update, posted on the Coast Reporter website Sunday, the task force said there has been no community spread of the virus on the Sunshine Coast “and no illness unrelated to travel.” The update also said there were currently no patients admitted at Sechelt Hospital with COVID-related illness.
