Four more British Columbians have died from COVID-19, the province revealed April 24. That brings B.C.'s death toll from the global pandemic to 98. A month-low 96 people are in hospital, and that includes 41 people in intensive care.
There were 29 new cases announced, for a total of 1,853 people infected.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases by health region are:
• 767 in Vancouver Coastal Health;
• 772 in Fraser Health;
• 114 in Island Health;
• 158 in Interior Health; and
• 42 in Northern Health.
"There have been no new outbreaks in long-term care, assisted living or acute care in the last day. In total, 20 facilities and three acute-care units have active outbreaks, with outbreaks declared over at 10 care facilities," B.C.'s provincial health officer Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a statement released to media.
"As of today, two employees have been confirmed positive at Superior Poultry in Coquitlam, and 35 employees have now been confirmed positive at United Poultry in Vancouver. Additionally, there are 10 confirmed positive cases connected to the Kearl Lake project in Alberta and 78 inmates and staff confirmed positive at the Mission Institution federal correctional centre."
The poultry-processing plant outbreaks in B.C. follow outbreaks at Alberta's Cargill and JBS meat-packing plants. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week that outbreaks at meat-packing plants could prompt beef prices to rise.
With the two poultry-processing plants have been closed, it remains a possibility that the shutdowns at those plants will prompt a jump in chicken prices. What is clear, however, is that chicken growers will not make any more money because the poultry sector, unlike the beef sector, is supply managed.
"The price that the grower is paid is set by the board based on a formula that takes into consideration the cost of inputs and it has nothing to do with market pressures like supply and demand," said BC Chicken Marketing Board executive director Bill Vanderspek.
"The price to the producers will not go up but our board doesn't control anything past the price at the farm gate. Our board doesn't set wholesale or retail prices."
He said that for the foreseeable future, the amount of chicken being processed will not go down even though two plants are closed. That is because there is processing capacity at other poultry-processing plants. A disruption in supply is possible, he added, if further outbreaks take place at other plants, particularly plants that are larger than the ones with the current outbreaks.
"There should be no effect on the supply of chicken in the marketplace," he said. "The supply will stay constant unless something drastic happens, like one of the major plants has a shutdown.
Public health teams are providing support to many community outbreaks, and Dix and Henry said in their statement that they "expect to continue to see more cases in the coming days as contact tracing continues."
@GlenKorstrom
