Sources are passing on a lot of concerning information about #COVID19BC management at #SiteC and in Fort St John. This much smoke usually means fire. I'm just going to pass it along in the hope that we can finally get some official response... 1/x

..1. Word is that workers who put themselves into "self-isolation" at #SiteC are NOT automatically tested. (This is a Q many have asked over the past 9 months - What is self isolation & are all workers tested?) I asked sources why. Same answer every time: "No test = no outbreak."

2. Frontline cleaning and other staff are moving freely between shifts at #SiteC, various Fort St John-area schools, and Peace Villa (which is the LTC attached to the FSJ Hospital, which has had #covid19BC cases). There have been cases & exposures at all 3 places.

Some of the workers also work in the hospital as well as at some of these other 3 sites. The rule that HC workers can only work at one care home doesn't mean they can't work at #SiteC and other risky locations. "The web of potential transmission is mind boggling really."

One source: 'We are already out of ICU beds & patients are going to Nanaimo. And our hospital was a designated Covid Center! All of Northern Health is out of ICU beds, not just Fort St John. Even Prince George [largest hospital in the health region] is flying them to Nanaimo'

I asked all sources if anyone had reported this to their supervisors or unions. Same response every time: with either, 'you get a lot of pushback if you broach this, and if you keep pushing, they find a way to fire you.' So they turn to people on Twitter. This is not right.

Another source: 'I don’t know that the ICU beds are full, but I do know that the medivac planes are here continually moving cases to Prince George or elsewhere. It was a joke to designate a 4 bed ICU facility as a Covid Centre.'

This same source agrees that #SiteC is not testing the "self isolation" cases that Hydro reports. "Sounded like it was based on symptoms only." #covid19bc

There's more but I'll just finish with the fact that many #SiteC workers live in town because they hate the camp (rooms too small, food bad) and are going back and forth between #SiteC with its insufficient testing, and Fort St John which has only 4 ICU beds...

I'm sure this sort of thing is going on all over the province. But that Northern Health is a region with positivity rates comparable to Fraser Health & also contains most of the fossil fuel/Big Hydro work camps seems to be no coincidence. Regardless it's negligent pandemic mgmt.

..Oh one last thing: cases that physically exist in the Northern Health region are likely worse than reported because workers are flown in but official case numbers record them as belonging to their home address, ie in other parts of BC or Canada. https://twitter.com/akurjata/status/1334522116394213376