There are now 7,842 cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in B.C. after health officials announced 139 new cases Friday.
Seven of these cases are epi-linked.
Health officials are also reporting 40 historic cases that were tested between Aug. 11 and Sept. 16 for people who did not have personal health numbers. All these cases have been previously investigated and managed by Vancouver Coastal Health, but had not been entered into the data system.
Provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry reports that there are 2,817 cases in Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), 4,007 in Fraser Health, 196 on Vancouver Island, 492 in Interior Health and 244 in Northern Health.
Additionally, there have been 86 cases of COVID-19 in B.C. of people who reside outside of Canada.
There have been two new health-care facility outbreaks. In total, 13 long-term care, assisted-living facilities or acute-care facilities have active outbreaks.
There have been no new community outbreaks. However, there continue to be community exposure events at other locations and on flights into and out of the province.
There have been three new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 223 deaths in British Columbia.
Of the total COVID-19 cases, 59 individuals are hospitalized, 20 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation. As well, 3,075 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases.
There are 1,803 active cases of COVID-19 in the province and 5,797 people who tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered.
Alerts are posted on the BC Centre for Disease Control’s (BCCDC) website, as well as on health authorities’ websites, providing details on where the potential exposure occurred and what actions to take – whether you need to self-isolate or monitor for symptoms.
“For schools, public health teams will contact individuals through contact tracing. Schools will continue to issue alerts when a school exposure has occurred and action is required. Supporting these protocols, the BCCDC website and health authorities are also publishing notifications," said Henry.
“We need to push the COVID-19 curve back down and we have the knowledge, the tools and resources to do just that. Always using your layers of protection and choosing to stick with your ‘safe six’ will help all of us this weekend and every weekend ahead.
“The cases we are seeing today are a direct result of how we spent our Labour Day long weekend. Let’s break the chain of transmission and turn this trend around.
“No one intends to pass the virus onto friends or family, but it is very easy to do. It can take up to two weeks for symptoms of COVID-19 to develop and in that time, we can inadvertently spread it to others.
“That is why the actions we take as individuals today are so important to the well-being of our communities tomorrow. Let’s choose safe, let’s choose small and let’s choose to protect the people we care about most.”
