Haida Gwaii has no active cases of COVID-19 for the first time in over four weeks.
The Old Massett emergency operations centre (EOC) announced today (Aug. 20) that there were no active cases of the virus and only one person still in isolation through Northern Health contact tracing.
“Please isolate when returning from off-island to help keep all safe and well,” the update said.
Aug. 20 also marked three weeks since the last local case was identified by symptoms on July 30 (later confirmed in the lab on Aug. 6).
Haida Gwaii has had a total of 26 epidemiologically-linked, lab-confirmed cases to date and no evidence of wider community spread.
An earlier update from the Village of Queen Charlotte EOC on Aug. 12 said that with two, 14-day incubation periods over, the public health officer did not expect any new cases to occur as part of the same epi-linked cluster.
The update also said the health officer was “encouraged to think” the ongoing community outbreak, declared on July 24, could soon be declared over.
According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, “A COVID-19 outbreak is generally considered over when 28 days (two full incubation periods) have passed from the last date a person was exposed to the virus.”
Medical officials can, however, reduce or extend the time period needed to declare an outbreak over.
According to a release from the Council of the Haida Nation, the ministerial order restricting non-essential travel to Haida Gwaii, announced by Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth on July 30 under the provincial state of emergency, will be in place for the duration of the outbreak.
The outbreak “is not likely to be declared over by the medical health officer until there have been no new COVID-19 positive cases confirmed for 28 consecutive days on Haida Gwaii,” the release said.
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