VANCOUVER -- A COVID-19 outbreak that infected 36 people at Lions Gate Hospital, killing seven of them, has now ended, according to Vancouver Coastal Health.
The health authority announced the end of the outbreak in a news release Saturday, saying that the unit on the hospital's fourth floor where the infections were found had reopened to admissions and transfers.
Of the people who tested positive in the outbreak, five were hospital staff members, Vancouver Coastal Health said. The seven people who died were all patients.
"We share our heartfelt condolences with the families, friends and loved ones impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak at LGH," the health authority said in its release.
Vancouver Coastal Health first declared the outbreak on April 29, saying 16 patients and one staff member had tested positive at that point.
This was the third declared outbreak at Lions Gate Hospital since the pandemic began, and the fourth time the hospital had been placed under outbreak protocols.
Earlier outbreaks were declared in November and April 2020. Before that, an initial cluster of cases among administrative staff in March 2020 wasn't officially deemed an outbreak, but it did prompt the health authority to move to outbreak response Phase 3, "which means the hospital will accept only emergency patients."
The latest outbreak led to testing of all staff working on the hospital's fourth floor, regardless of whether they had symptoms.
B.C. does not routinely test people without symptoms. It only tests asymptomatic people in a handful of circumstances, unlike other provinces, which test more widely.
With files from CTV News Vancouver's Penny Daflos
