‘Challenging’ COVID-19 outbreak at Kelowna long-term care home made worse by multiple issues

The protracted COVID-19 outbreak at Kelowna’s Cottonwoods long-term care home has been one of B.C.’s most challenging, the province’s top doctor said Monday.

“That outbreak started in August. When we started to see increases in the community, it spilled over into that care home and it has been a very difficult outbreak, as it was the first time,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said in a Monday press conference.

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It’s due to a variety of factors, she said. When the pandemic made a resurgence in Kelowna, residents were just getting their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination in their primary series of shots, Henry said.

That said, most were vaccinated and that remains the case. Many have also received booster shots as well.

“But there were a number of people who had been moved into the facility that were not yet vaccinated, and the staff rates weren’t at a high enough level as well,” she said.

“So that has been a very challenging outbreak to manage. There are many different factors, including repeated introductions, the strain of the virus that we’re seeing, the fact that it is (a shared room facility). It has been one of the most challenging ones.”

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To date, Cottonwoods Care Centre long-term care in Kelowna has 70 cases, affecting 55 residents and 15 staff. There were 17 deaths connected to the outbreak.

For weeks it was the only Kelowna care home with an outbreak but Monday that changed when Sun Pointe Village long-term care was added to the list. It has nine cases among six residents and three staff. In Penticton, Village by the Station long-term care has 41 cases: 27 residents and 14 staff, with three deaths connected to the outbreak.

In an interview in October, when the outbreak was in its third month, Interior Health’s medical health officer Dr. Silvina Mema said Cottonwoods has been a particularly challenging facility for keeping the virus at bay because of the aging structure, shared rooms and the population of dementia patients.

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“The layout of Cottonwoods is one of those facilities that was built many years ago, so there isn’t a separation between units that would allow us to separate completely,” she said.

In early October, B.C.’s seniors advocate released a review of COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes and examined care home outbreaks from March 2020 to February 2021.

During that time period, long-term care and assisted living staff and residents were almost three-and-a-half times more likely to contract COVID-19 and residents were 33 times more times likely to die from COVID-19. In total, there were 365 outbreaks at 210 sites in B.C.