Tuesday COVID-19 Update notes: Our new reality lasts towards June and maybe beyond

"I do think that it's more and more, less likely that we're going to be able to get back to full normal life, which  I miss a lot,  before at least the summer. And then we need to start preparing ourselves  for the potential of a second wave in the fall . In the meantime we need to put every possible effort into development of a vaccine" -- Dr. Bonnie Henry in her Tuesday COVID-19 briefing

British Columbia has crossed over the 1,000 mark in reported cases of COVID-19, as Tuesday's update from Health Minister Adrian Dix and Public Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry provided a review of the last 24 hours for residents of the province.

“We are announcing 43 new cases, for a total of 1,013 cases in British Columbia.

Every health region in British Columbia has patients with COVID-19: 476 are in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 348 are in the Fraser Health region, 67 are in the Island Health region, 107 are in the Interior Health region and 15 are in the Northern Heath region.

It is with sadness that we report five deaths in the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health regions in the last 24 hours, for a total of 24 COVID-19 related deaths in British Columbia."

They both noted as to the important point that British Columbia is at in the response to the COVID-19 virus, with the residents of British Columbia once again urged to stay the course with the measures in place.

“We are at a critical juncture in our provincial COVID-19 response. Every British Columbian has a part to play to flatten the curve. We must all do the right thing and be 100% committed. “No one is immune, but everyone can make a difference. If you are older, staying home keeps you away from those who could put you at risk. If you are young, staying apart means you are preserving important capacity within our health-care system for our elders and others at highest risk."

In the follow up Question and Answer period, the main theme was to note that the path towards responding to the virus will be a long one.

With Dr. Henry and Mr. Dix observing that life as we may consider to have been normal prior to March, most likely won't be returning until the summer at least, with a warning that Round Two of COVID-19 could be back as early as the fall.

"Realistically and I've said this before, we are going to be in some form of having to monitor and prevent transmission of this virus, until we have a vaccine; or until enough of the population is immune to it that it's no longer infecting people .... When we get through this wave, which will likely be in another few weeks, it may be into May for sure. We need to start thinking about what does it looks like again if we're seeing importations again, if we're seeing clusters and cases being transferred in the community"  -- Dr. Bonnie Henry

For now the focus should be on the present, the one day at a time approach that best delivers the best measurement as to how British Columbia is faring in the face of COVID-19

You can review the full statement from Tuesday here.

The BC Centre for Disease control has some valuable Coronavirus notes related to COVID-19 you can explore that information here.

You can learn more about the outbreak from both the Province and the Federal government from the links below:

Federal Government site

British Columbia Government site

The World Health Organization website also offers up the latest advisories on the global situation.

More from  Northern Health can be reviewed here 

You can review our archive of past statements and local information here.

Local governments and organizations have also provided for increased awareness of COVID-19 issues, the string of statements that came quickly at the end of the week can be reviewed here.

For notes from across Canada and British Columbia we have been archiving the latest items through our political portal Darcy McGee

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