The COVID-19 outbreak at Mission Institution is over.
Dr. Bonnie Henry made the announcement Thursday afternoon.
The Mission medium-security federal prison had one of B.C.’s worst outbreaks and was the site of one of the largest prison outbreaks in Canada. More than 120 prisoners and more than a dozen guards were diagnosed with the virus. At least two prisoners died from COVID-19 complications.
The declaration of the end of the outbreak came after no new cases had been detected for two 14-day incubation periods.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, said ending the outbreak “took an incredible effort.” She praised the work by Fraser Health and the BC Centre for Disease Control and hailed “the immense effort that people put into ensuring that people in that correctional facility had access to what they needed to control this outbreak and were cared for and supported through this last very difficult number of weeks.”
Protocols developed in response to the outbreak have been rolled out at federal prisons across Canada, Dr. Henry said.
Meanwhile, officials say the number of cases linked to an outbreak at Abbotsford Regional Hospital hasn’t increased since last week. There are 11 cases linked to that outbreak.
RELATED: 9 new cases in B.C.
RELATED: Voices from inside Canada’s worst COVID-19 prison outbreak
RELATED: Mission inmate dies from apparent complications of COVID-19
RELATED: Rally calls for safe release of prisoners as COVID-19 runs rampant at Mission Institution
Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email:tolsen@abbynews.com
