VANCOUVER -- Another nine businesses in B.C.'s Lower Mainland have temporarily closed their doors in the past week because of likely COVID-19 transmission between employees.
All nine of the latest closures, which were ordered between May 14 and May 18, were in the Fraser Health Region. No closures have been reported in the Vancouver Coastal Health Region since May 7.
The latest closures include a dance school, two fitness centres and a property management company.
No other exposure notices have been posted by either health authority in the past week.
Since the beginning of April, more than 100 businesses in the Lower Mainland have been ordered to close due to likely transmission of COVID-19 in the workplace.
On April 12, the province began allowing WorkSafeBC prevention officers to serve businesses with shutdown orders after three or more employees test positive for the disease. The closures last for at least 10 days. Once the orders are lifted, business names are removed from the health authorities' closure websites.
While WorkSafeBC officers deliver the closure orders, they only do so at the direction of a local medical health officer.
"Closures only occur if a cluster of three or more cases is identified at a workplace and transmission is likely to have happened within the workplace," a statement on Fraser Health's website says.
"Most COVID-19 cases acquire infection through household or social exposures and do not transmit it to others at their workplace, therefore the identification of workers with infection at a worksite does not always result in closure."
Some businesses may not be forced to close if it's determined to be in the public interest to keep them open. Those workplaces can include police and fire stations, health-care facilities, grocery stores, schools, daycares and courthouses, according to the Fraser Health website.
The most recent additions to Lower Mainland business closures, organized by the dates the closures began, are:
May 14
- Dance Collective, Burnaby
- Canada Cartage, Port Coquitlam (partial closure for office staff only)
- West Coast Property Management, Burnaby
- Fibretech Distributors Inc., Surrey (closure of manufacturing department)
May 15
- Colwin Electrical Group, Port Moody (closure of downstairs floor)
May 16
- Good Life Fitness, Surrey
May 17
- Abby Spring Services, Abbotsford (both sites on Wheel Avenue and Mason Street are closed)
- Planet Fitness, Abbotsford
May 18
- Prime Health Ltd., Maple Ridge
With files from CTV News Vancouver's Ian Holliday
