VICTORIA -- A small B.C. island thrust into a COVID-19 crisis is taking the fight to the virus, according to health officials.
Cormorant Island and its village of Alert Bay faced an outbreak of coronavirus cases in April.
At its worst, the remote community had 30 positive coronavirus diagnoses. A woman from the local Namgis First Nation died after being infected with the virus in late April.
The population of the island, wedged between northern Vancouver Island and B.C.’s mainland, hovers between 1,200 and 1,500 people, depending on the season.
Officials with the island’s First Nations Health Authority say, as of Wednesday, 83 per cent of their positive cases have been resolved.
“There is really only a few more people and those patients could really be resolved by this weekend,” said Alert Bay doctor Dan Cutfeet.
“Our last positive case was Thursday, last Thursday, so really by this weekend we could be sitting at zero.”
According to the doctor, local government leaders are discussing plans to lift a state of emergency which was implemented in April.
Cutfeet says the emergency order could be removed by Friday or early next week.
