Sparwood has had a light brush with COVID19 after a guest at the Causeway Bay Hotel tested positive for the disease.
In a post on Facebook, regional manager of the hotel Joanne Wilton said that the hotel guest ate at the Gateway Restaurant in the hotel on August 1 and 2, but was then quarantined in their hotel room until Aug. 8 when they checked out.
Information on where the guest contracted the disease and when is not known. The guest was not a Sparwood resident.
Wilton said that the BCCDC has assured her that “people who ate in the restaurant at that time do not need to be tested”, but added that in keeping with government recommendations, anyone who develops symptoms is instructed to call 811.
“All safety precautions have been taken. I asked the Environmental Health Officer to come in for a visit to make sure we were doing all of the right things. She assured me that all measures taken were correct and that our safety plan was excellent.”
Wilton said that the concurrent closure of Gateway Restaurant was not due to the a result of bad timing, as the hotel was struggling with staff shortages. According to the hotel website the restaurant will be closed until at least Aug. 24.
“We find ourselves extremely short staffed due to vacations, people choosing to self isolate and yes, due to illness that have not been identified as COVID”, said Wilton.
Wilton was confident that the hotel had done its due diligence in working for the safety of its customers.
“I think there’s nothing to worry about,” she told The Free Press.
Wilton also shared the Interior Health inspection report on the hotel website, with the report giving the Causeway Bay Hotel a clean bill of health, noting that the hotel and its facilities were in full compliance with COVID19 safety requirements.
Within B.C., there were 42 new cases announced on Aug. 11 by the B.C. Minister of Health and the provincial health officer, with 4,111 cases in the province.
Of those, only 472 cases are active.
Those numbers are sobering when compared to cases in the rest of Canada on Tuesday, with Ontario reporting 33 new cases on the same day.
Ontario has recorded more than 40,000 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and reported 95 new cases on Wednesday Aug. 12.