There are currently more than a dozen businesses in the City of Surrey that have been closed for 10 days due to COVID-19 transmission in the workplace.
On April 8, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced that when three or more people in a workplace contract COVID-19, with the workplace being the likely location of transmission, the business will be ordered to close unless it is in the public interest to keep it open.
The closure notices are served by a Fraser Health Authority environmental health officer or WorkSafeBC.
“The closures will generally be for 10 days, or as otherwise determined by the Medical Health Officer, to prevent further transmission of COVID-19 and to allow time to update and approve the worksite COVID-19 safety plan,” Fraser Health notes on its website.
According to the active closure list, as of May 4, 16 businesses have been temporarily shut down due to the public health order. Of those, six of the businesses are located in South Surrey.
RELATED: WorkSafeBC can now shut down businesses due to COVID-19 transmission
Businesses closed include car dealerships, a jeweller, insurance businesses, furniture store, equipment store, a Sikh temple, machinery business, a gym, travel agency, sheet metal business, kitchen store, window facility, and electrical equipment supplier.
A full list of the businesses that are temporarily closed can be found here.
The City of Surrey has been leading the province in terms of COVID-19 transmission. While the province does not regularly update the number of cases of COVID-19 in specific municipalities, it does regularly report how many cases were confirmed in each health authority.
From April 30 to May 1, there were 1,509 new cases in the Fraser Health region, dwarfing the Vancouver Coastal Health region, which reported 438 new cases. Island Health reported 61 cases, Interior Health 106 cases and there were 60 cases in the Northern Health region.
The most recent city-by-city data, published April 7, indicates that by the end of March, there were 26,103 cases of COVID-19 in Surrey and 1,973 in South Surrey and White Rock. Comparatively, Vancouver reported 15,731 cases
Since the start of the pandemic, Fraser Health Authority has reported 76,137 cases of COVID-19, followed by Vancouver Coastal with 32,302, Interior with 11,075, Northern with 7,223, and Vancouver Island with 4,726.
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