A City of Kamloops employee has tested positive for COVID-19 and is at home self-isolating. It is the second city employee to have tested positive since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.
In a statement on Thursday, the city said the employee had no contact with the public during their city work.
Interior Health will conduct contact tracing and the city is following its established safety protocols related to workplace exposure and cleaning. The city said it would not be providing additional details, in order to ensure employee privacy is maintained.
City CAO David Trawin said that while administration does not know if the disease has spread to other staff, the city is comfortable with its COVID-19 protocols in place, noting the majority of city staff continue to work from home.
The Kamloops local health area has seen an increase in COVID-19 cases of late, including the highest weekly reported numbers in the local health area to date, released on Wednesday (Feb. 10).
The area recorded 161 cases of COVID-19 between Jan. 31 and Feb. 6. The local health area has more confirmed cases of the disease in January than there were in all of 2020.
The numbers
2020: 346
Jan. 3-9: 62
Jan. 10-16: 97
Jan. 17-23: 124
Jan. 24-30: 117
Jan. 31-Feb. 6: 161
The Kamloops local health area encompasses an area of 16,500 square kilometres, including Kamloops, Little Fort, Barriere, Sun Peaks, Chase, Westwold, Adams Lake, Anglemont, Savona and Logan Lake.
