The medical health officer in Kamloops says communicable disease units are starting to get stretched thin as COVID-19 cases rise.

Speaking on NL Newsday, Dr. Carol Fenton was asked why it took eight days for parents at NorKam Secondary to be sent a letter, after an exposure event at that school. The exposure happened on Nov. 6 and a letter went out on Nov. 14.

“That’s a direct reflection of the volume of work we’re having to get through in order to do all the contact tracing. Do all of the investigations of where everybody was and who they were all in contact with, and then notify all those people.”

Fenton says most new cases in Interior Health are linked to Halloween parties.

“At this point, we’re now seeing secondary cases. So we’ll have someone test positive, and we’ll ask them, where have you been, and who have you been in contact with? And then we’re finding out those people they were in contact with who they got infected from, those people were at Halloween parties. So we’re seeing lasting effects from those Halloween parties.”

Active cases in IH have more than doubled in the past two weeks, from 93 on Nov. 2 to 204 as of yesterday.

“We’ve had to do a lot of work to notify all of those people. So our communicable disease units are working really, really hard to try and get through all of this work. But that is why we’re seeing delays right now.”