Read on Twitter
1 in 25 people have COVID-19 in a small, rural community. Did residents get a warning from health officials? No, because that would violate "privacy". Instead they find out when an emergency team is deployed because local paramedics are overwhelmed #bcpoli https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fort-st-james-covid-outbreak-1.5835665?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
Literally since the beginning of this pandemic local officials and First Nations have been pleading with the B.C. government to release more local health data in line with what people get in nearly every other province in Canada. There has been an outright refusal to do. Now this
I said this yesterday but you have to understand: Health officials would have seen case counts rising in Fort St. James. They would have seen it go from 1 in 50 people to 1 in 30 to 1 in 25 and still, nobody thought that the people who live there had a right to know #bcpoli
And to emphasize: B.C. health officials are STILL not the ones to have this public. It's the emergency response team that shared this information. Yesterday, a special crew was being sent to Fort St James and the gov't made no mention of it in their daily briefing #bcpoli
At what point are you allowed to know that four percent of your community has COVID-19? Shops and services have been closing doors because of lack of staff. And the gov't is still adhering to the idea that revealing there are cases in Fort St James would be a bridge too far?
This is a good point. I'm making the assumption someone WAS watching. There's every possibility that no one even noticed because of this disregard for timely, local data. I'd like to think otherwise but who knows? https://twitter.com/vb_jens/status/1337065556009074688?s=19
In light of this, remember they public health told @ty_olsen more local data would actually make things WORSE #bcpoli https://www.abbynews.com/news/city-level-covid-19-data-would-jeopardize-public-health-b-c-s-provincial-health-agency-says/
one update to this: the number is "only" 1.5 in 100 if this is expanded to the overall health area of Fort St. James as opposed to the district itself but the overall point stands
