Ongoing monitoring and testing of staff and patients following declaration of a COVID-19 outbreak on the Internal Medicine Unit (IMU) at University Hospital of Northern BC in Prince George, has identified additional lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19.
As of December 31, seven staff and six patients have tested positive for COVID-19 related to the IMU outbreak, which is no longer designated as precautionary. Northern Health Public Health is closely monitoring for additional cases, and the facility continues to take steps to protect the health of staff and those they care for, with enhanced outbreak precautions.
The change in outbreak status means the timeline for declaring the outbreak over will be extended; outbreak measures will remain in place until there have been no further exposure concerns for a period of 28 days (two consecutive 14-day COVID-19 incubation periods).
Public health officials will be monitoring the situation carefully over coming weeks and will only declare the outbreak over when they are confident that chains of transmission have been stopped.
View more information on public exposures, school exposures, and facility or community outbreaks of COVID-19 within the Northern Health region.