VANCOUVER -- First, there was an outbreak of COVID-19 at the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre. Then, health officials declared an outbreak at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam as well.
Now, B.C.'s Ministry of Health confirms that eight people at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge have also tested positive for the coronavirus.
So far, Fraser Health has not declared an outbreak at the Maple Ridge facility. Data from the ministry indicates seven of the eight people who have tested positive so far are inmates, rather than staff members.
There are also 36 outbreak-related cases of COVID-19 at the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre as of Saturday morning, according to the ministry. That's up from 24 on Thursday. All but one of the people who tested positive are inmates, the ministry said.
At the North Fraser Pretrial Centre, there are now 22 cases related to the outbreak, up from the 20 reported on Friday. Again, all but one of the people infected are inmates.
The ministry also indicated that there are five more cases of COVID-19 at the Port Coquitlam facility and three more at the Surrey facility that are not believed to be related to the ongoing outbreaks at each site.
"Public Health continues to work to reconcile the case numbers for all the sites," the ministry said in a statement. "As assignment of cases as outbreak or non-outbreak related and information-gathering regarding these clusters continues, the numbers may change."
Correctional facilities have been an area of concern for health officials throughout the pandemic.
An outbreak at the federal Mission Institution infected at least one-third of the prison's population, and several other prisons in B.C. and across Canada have dealt with exposures and outbreaks.
