COVID-19 outbreak at St. Paul’s Hospital NICU in Vancouver over

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A COVID-19 outbreak at the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at St. Paul’s Hospital in Downtown Vancouver has been declared over, about two weeks after it started.

Providence Health Care says the outbreak was small, which means fewer than five people were affected. A baby in the unit was among those infected with the coronavirus but a status update on the infant isn’t being released by the agency due to privacy reasons.

“We are, unfortunately, not able to give any updates on the status of any cases and how many cases there were [and] any specifics of the cases,” explains Elaine Yong with Providence Health Care.

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A temporary unit was set up to help families requiring care while the main unit was fully sanitized. “Any babies that were in the satellite NICU have been moved back into the main NICU.”

Yong adds protocols put in place when the outbreak was officially declared on July 16 will remain in place moving forward. “One of them being mandatory masks for any parents visiting their babies in the NICU and the other one being signing of a visitor log.”

The maternity unit at St. Paul’s was never part of the outbreak.

Providence manages the hospital but Vancouver Coastal Health took the lead to manage the outbreak.