There are now 113,702 cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in B.C. after health officials announced 873 new cases Tuesday.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reports that there have been 218 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 512 in the Fraser Health region, 43 in the Island Health region, 72 in the Interior Health region, 28 in the Northern Health Region and no new cases from people who resides outside of Canada.
However, due to a delay in the Public Health Reporting Data Warehouse (PHRDW) lab system, these numbers are preliminary and may be adjusted once confirmed with PHRDW data, explained Henry.
There are currently 5,221 confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern in our province. Of the total cases, 258 are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 3,627 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant, 65 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant and 1,529 cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant. This data will be updated weekly and included in the BC Centre for Disease Control's COVID-19 weekly surveillance report.
There have been two new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,515 deaths in British Columbia.
The outbreak at Chilliwack General Hospital is now over.
Of the total COVID-19 cases, 377 individuals are hospitalized, 116 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation.
“In B.C., 1,148,993 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-SII COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, 87,785 of which are second doses," said Henry.
There are 9,756 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 16,290 people under public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. A further 102,268 people who tested positive have recovered
COVID-19 vaccination update for B.C.
People 65 and older, Indigenous peoples 18 and over, and individuals who have received their ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ letter are now eligible to receive their vaccine. People 55 to 65 may also book appointments for the AstraZeneca vaccine at pharmacies throughout the province.
“We are adapting our vaccine delivery in step with our supply and will continue to do that moving forward. If needed, we will pivot, pause or shift our delivery to maximize protection to as many people as possible," said Henry.
“Right now, the parallel worker program is focused on transmission hot spots – high-risk workplaces in our highest-risk communities. We are systematically working through the immunization of our first responders, school staff and child care workers in these communities, and in the coming weeks will expand into more communities as vaccine supplies allow."
The Province of British Columbia has also formally extended the provincial state of emergency again, which allows health and emergency management officials to continue to use extraordinary powers under the Emergency Program Act (EPA) to support the Province's COVID-19 pandemic response.
B.C. is currently in its longest state of emergency in history.
