A worker with a Burnaby company is in isolation after he tested positive for COVID-19 this week.
According to an Aug. 24 internal memorandum seen by The Tri-City News, a contracted employee working with Certispec — a Burnaby-based laboratory testing company responsible for quality control — came down with symptoms of COVID-19 after working a dayshift on Saturday, Aug. 22.
The worker was on a job at the Pacific Coast Terminals tank farm facility in Port Moody.
“Earlier this evening, PCT received confirmation that one of Certispec’s workers tested positive for COVID-19 today,” wrote PCT operations manager Beau Storey to staff, later writing the worker immediately began 14 days of isolation.
Representatives for both PCT and Certispec have confirmed the case to The Tri-City News and both said they have completed their own internal investigation.
“The jobs that we do are mainly outside,” said Certispec regional operations manager Garth Collyer. “We don’t have any interaction with the public and we have limited interaction with the terminal staff.”
The port acts as a major waypoint for sulphur, potash, canola oil and ethylene glycol — a high-grade antifreeze used in the production of synthetic fibres like Gore-Tex — which arrive to Port Moody aboard Canadian Pacific trains before getting shipped overseas.
The employee is one of about three Certispec workers usually onsite at the facility. Tasked with gathering samples of ethylene glycol, the employee worked alone, wore personal protective equipment and used his own vehicle, according to the internal memo.
Collyer said one other staff member was contacted by Fraser Health, but that based on limited interaction with the man now in isolation, the contact tracing ended there.
Fraser Health has yet to respond to the status of its contact-tracing investigation.
After interviewing the foreman and other workers from that shift, Certispec and Pacific Coast Terminals found the person who fell ill with the virus had only worked once since Aug. 10 and did not come in contact with anyone else at the facility.
Following their investigations, the memo says “any risk from the incident would be extremely low, if not negligible.”
The Port Moody case comes as COVID-19 hospitalizations rise to an 11-week high across B.C. As of Aug. 25, there are a record 925 British Columbians battling the virus across the province after a record single-day case total of 107 over the weekend.
