New COVID-19 outbreak reported at St. Paul's hospital

St. Paul's Hospital in downtown Vancouver is reporting a new outbreak of COVID-19, this time in the renal unit on the sixth floor.

Providence Health Care, which operates St. Paul's, says the outbreak was announced yesterday and is in addition to outbreaks earlier this month in two units of the hospital's Heart Centre and in the cardiac surgery intensive care unit.

Services of the renal unit are being maintained in other areas while new admissions and transfers are halted.

The rest of the busy hospital, including its emergency room, remains open.

Providence Health Care is also dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak involving two patients in one unit at Mount St. Joseph's Hospital, also in Vancouver, but that facility remains open although the source of the outbreak has not been traced.