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The global as we know it is changing All the general systems of how we get our food, we paint and socialize have been interrupted due to the new coronavirus pandemic.
We want ways to report not only what is happening today, but also what might be imaginable for tomorrow. Since 2003, The Tyee has been doing in-depth reporting, presenting voices that don’t appear regularly in the media, and proposing imaginable answers to our urgent problems.
Tyee’s reports provoked local food movements, replaced legislation and began mandatory talks. As our society evolves as a result of COVID-19, the time has come to communicate ambitious solutions.
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Jen St. Denis is the journalist for Tyee’s Downtown Eastside. Look for it on Twitter . . JenStDen. This reporting rate is made imaginable through the Local Journalism Initiative.
The president of a union representing many workers in the Downtown Eastside says enough is being done to inform citizens and staff about the highest levels of COVID-19 exposure in the neighborhood.
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Downtown Eastside has noticed few cases in the spring and summer, however, recent weeks have noticed an increase in the network that houses many of the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
The British Columbia Indian Chiefs Union today warned of a “wave” of instances in the neighborhood, with instances shown between citizens and frontline workers. UUBCIC called for transparency in the Vancouver Coastal Health component and an “urgent, transparent, public and culturally appropriate action plan that provides without delay and safe housing for others who test positive and want a position to recover. “
UBCIC also calls for a “commitment to publicly report any case in the DTES so that citizens of the densely populated neighborhood can take precautions for their health and safety. “*
Andrew Ledger, president of CUPE 1004, told Tyee that a lack of instance data affects other people who live and paint in the neighborhood.
“We are learning anecdotally that a resident or perhaps a fellow employee has tested positive for COVID-19,” he said. “And other people worried and nervous, knowing that they might have been in contact with that person. But the employer’s position” is clear: it will not accentuate any data, it submits to the fitness authority. “
The union represents about 700 workers at PHS Community Services, a social services company that manages 19 sets of support homes and shelters and also operates various drug sites.
MIcheal Vonn, CEO of PHS, showed that the number of instances is increasing. “I would say that very recently is when we started to get this increase,” he says.
Ledger stated that PHS refused to tell workers that a user in his office tested positive, which has led others to be informed about the exposure imaginable through word of mouth or social media posts, which fuels anxiety, he said.
Vonn said PHS followed the example of public fitness officials and left contacts and decisions about whether to inform Vancouver Coastal Health residents, staff and consumers.
Sometimes this means that Vancouver Coastal Health informs others directly if they have been in close contact with who tested positive for the virus. In other cases, the fitness authority publishes a paper notice.
Vonn stated that he did not know whether workers who are on leave or absent from the site were informed that they might have been exposed. Vancouver Coastal Health says reviews of possible exposure “are shared with staff, informing them of exposure and asking them to self-control for symptoms. “
All workers deserve to be screened for symptoms, he said.
Ledger said he believed that the citizens of Downtown Eastside were not well informed about the risks, i. e. given their vulnerability and the difficulty in locating contacts to stop the spread of the virus.
Employees can paint at various sites in the neighborhood, increasing the threat of transmission, he said, and many consumers use the facility anonymously, which he does to locate contacts.
Dr Brian Conway, director of the Vancouver Center for Infectious Diseases, said initial tests show that COVID-19 was probably more prevalent than in the idea past in Downtown Eastside and among those not housed in the city center.
Conway began testing other people to see if they had antibodies to the virus as a component of an assignment of studies on whether COVID-19 is spreading more widely among other vulnerable people than was known in the past.
“There are some positive tests for the antibody. So where we think there was probably no exposure to COVID, there’s probably no exposure,” Conway told Tyee.
“And it will be a top priority for us in the long run: what happened and we will analyze it. “
Residents and network advocates feared that an outbreak of COVID-19 in downtown Eastside would be devastating and that most citizens suffered one or more serious fitness problems, but instead of an outbreak of COVID-19, a wave of overdose deaths hit the network. as they were interrupted or reduced in reaction to the pandemic.
But outbreaks of COVID-19 have not yet been reported, the virus is still very present in the Downtown Eastside. Vancouver Coastal Health warns that they oppose exposure to the West Pub, a western hotel bar, between August 20 and 30. reported on several other SRO buildings in downtown Eastside and Chinatown.
Vancouver Coastal Health refused to give Tyee a list of all exhibits in the neighborhood. The authority also did not first publish data on the West Pub display on its online page as it sometimes does on display in other companies.
After The Tyee an article that included denunciation of this resolution through attorney Judy Graves, Vancouver Coastal reversed course and added the West Pub exhibition, which he calls “low-risk” on his website.
Earlier this year, there were also several cases of COVID-19 in downtown Eastside in shelters run by First United Church and the Salvation Army, Conway said. one of the worst outbreaks of COVID-19 in Canadian prisons.
“People who had been released from incarceration had nowhere to pass Array. and ended up in those places with very low thresholds for emergency housing,” Conway said.
History updated on September 11 at 4:24 p. m. to come with an update from the Union of Indian Chiefs of British Columbia expressing considerations about accumulation in COVID-19 cases.
Read more: Coronavirus, municipal policy
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