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Camp Worker Shares COVID Fears as Companies Withhold Info

LNG Canada won’t provide current data on positive cases among its workforce.

Amanda Follett Hosgood 28 Jan 2022TheTyee.ca

Amanda Follett Hosgood is The Tyee’s northern B.C. reporter. She lives in Wet’suwet’en territory. Find her on Twitter @amandajfollett.

A worker at the LNG Canada plant under construction in Kitimat says that as many of his co-workers test positive for COVID-19 and are sent into isolation, he fears he will be next.

“People every day are going into quarantine,” he said. “I think the attitude around here is just, ‘OK, let’s just work until we all get put in quarantine.’”

As Omicron cases surge across the province, there’s concern about a lack of timely COVID reporting from work camps, where hundreds of people live in close proximity.

LNG Canada said there have been no outbreaks at its facility since December 2020. According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, an outbreak is declared “when a certain number of people who share a common space are diagnosed with COVID-19 within a 14-day period.” The number of cases required to form an outbreak can vary based on risk, it adds.

LNG Canada wouldn’t provide current data on COVID cases in the work camp.

“All COVID-19-related case data and information are within the Northern Health jurisdiction and are subject to privacy laws,” the company said.

But the worker said about 100 people are isolating at Cedar Valley Lodge, LNG Canada’s camp facility that can accommodate up to 4,500 people, after testing positive for the virus.

BC Hydro does provide daily COVID-19 data updates for its Site C work camp in northeast B.C., where it has seen a sharp rise in cases in January. The camp houses more than 1,300 people.

On Thursday, the mega-dam project was reporting 423 new cases in January — more than half of all cases at the facility since the pandemic began nearly two years ago.

It said there were currently 128 active COVID-19 cases, and 69 people — more than five per cent of camp residents — in isolation at the facility. The remaining 59 cases were isolating at home.

“While we have seen an increase in cases at site with the spread of the Omicron variant across the province, work continues safely as planned on Site C. All of the active cases are either asymptomatic or mild,” said Site C community relations manager David Conway in an email.

“The project’s onsite medical clinic also continues to provide booster shots for eligible workers and about 600 workers to date have received a booster dose,” Conway said. “We continue to monitor developments with the Omicron variant while working closely with Northern Health to manage current cases and prevent future cases.”

Coastal GasLink, which is building a 670-kilometre gas pipeline through northern B.C. and has about a dozen work camps through the region, posts monthly COVID-19 updates on its website.

Data current to Dec. 31 showed the project had seen 346 cases since the pandemic started, a number that has likely increased given Omicron’s rapid rate of spread.

The Tyee requested updated COVID-19 data from Coastal GasLink’s parent company TC Energy and was told the site would be updated this week.

Coastal GasLink, Site C and LNG Canada all require workers to be vaccinated.

The LNG worker, who The Tyee agreed not to name for employment reasons, was concerned about recent changes in the camp’s dining halls, which he said are used by over a thousand people per day.

He said workers previously lined up and were served by camp staff.

Now they are being asked to serve themselves with shared utensils, something the employee said he’s never experienced in years of camp work and believes is due to staffing shortages.

“It’s a bizarre time to choose to start doing that,” he said.

But while guidance from the BC Centre for Disease Control early in the pandemic suggested that work camp operators “consider having kitchen staff serve the food,” restaurant buffets have been permitted throughout the pandemic provided that handwashing stations or hand sanitizers are nearby.

LNG Canada confirmed in an email to The Tyee that it had made recent changes to food services at its worker accommodations but said the return to self-service in some areas of the dining facilities was “to reduce food wastage and food handling.”

“Food service areas and equipment are sanitized regularly. We continue to review and enhance our COVID-19 measures and require workers to adhere to all COVID-19 protocols, including mask-wearing, hand sanitization, social distancing, mandatory vaccination and mandatory testing,” a company spokesperson said.

Provincial health officials said recently that the current wave of the COVID-19 Omicron variant may have peaked, but that its effects would continue to be seen, as hospitalizations lag behind cases.

On Monday, hospitalizations due to COVID-19 reached an all-time high in B.C., with 987 patients receiving treatment — nearly twice the number from the previous peak in April — but appeared to level off mid-week.

COVID-19 waves consistently break later in the North.

Northern Health chief medical officer Dr. Jong Kim told the Prince George Post this week that cases are expected to peak in the region over the coming weeks.

The health authority hasn’t declared a community outbreak in the region since November, despite the province’s four other health authorities all reporting outbreaks in January.

In an email, a spokesperson for Northern Health confirmed that outbreaks are still being reported and public health continues to monitor COVID-19 activity in the region.

While the worker The Tyee spoke with said that contact tracing has stopped at LNG Canada, the company said it “follows provincial guidelines” on contact tracing and that an on-site medical service team, International SOS, follows up with close contacts when necessary.

Current BCCDC guidelines state that close contacts of people who have COVID-19 are no longer required to isolate and, as a result, “contact tracing is of limited value except for high-priority settings.” But it adds that public health will follow up with close contacts in high-risk settings, including work camps.

LNG Canada also outlined the measures it was taking to keep workers safe, including restricting workers’ movements, mandatory rapid testing and mask-wearing and its vaccine requirement.

But the worker said he feared exposure.

“I don’t want to go to quarantine, I want to go home when it’s my time to go home, and I want to feel safe. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”  [Tyee]

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