No overnight camps for kids in B.C. this summer: Dr. Bonnie Henry

If you were planning to put your children in overnight summer camps, you may want to make new plans.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said that conversations among health officials indicate that they are off the books.

"We will be encouraging people to focus on day camps," Dr. Henry said today, May 26. "There is not a situation that we can see this summer where overnight camps for youth or for school-aged kids can be done in a way that would prevent transmission of this virus."

One of the issues with these camps, she said, is they are in more remote areas where it can be a challenge to access healthcare.

There are also concerns from some communities that children coming from many different areas will negatively affect their small communities.

"Overnight camps for school-aged children will not be not be something that will be happening this summer in B.C. and I can say my colleagues across the country and in the U.S. as well that's the same case."

For the first time in weeks, B.C. had no new COVID-19 deaths were reported today.

There were also only 11 new cases, raising the total number of COVID-19 diagnoses to 2,541 since the pandemic began. There are currently 258 active cases and of those 37 are in hospital and seven are in critical care.

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