Another spike in case counts, new enforcement measures and the end of the community outbreak on Haida Gwaii make for the Friday COVID review

With Dr. Bonnie Henry away this week, Dr. Reka 
Gustafson shared the podium with Health Minister
Adrian Dix for the daily COVID updates
(from BC Govt)

British Columbians are edging closer to  days of the 100 cases plus of COVID per day mark once again and that's a trend line that BC officials will be working hard to reverse, after the Friday report of the state f COVID in the province makes note of 90 new cases on the day.

The statement from Health Minister Adrian Dix and Deputy Provincial Health Officer Dr. Reká Gustafson, came following a presentation from Minster of Justice and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth, who expressed his disappointment at the ever increasing case count levels.

As part of his information session on Friday, Mr. Farnworth also advised of new measures and enforcement efforts in place, effective today to try to bend the curve back to the success of earlier this summer.

As for the Friday COVID observations the two public officials made note of the following:

“Today, we are announcing 90 new cases, for a total of 4,915 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 824 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 2,594 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and 3,889 people who tested positive have recovered. 

Currently, 13 individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19, five of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation." 

Across British Columbia the Health Authority totals are as follows:

1,569 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 2,572 in the Fraser Health region, 160 in the Island Health region, 417 in the Interior Health region, 122 in the Northern Health region, an increase of one from Thursday.

75 cases of COVID have been recorded in people who reside outside of Canada. 

With a grim benchmark of 200 deaths relayed on Thursday, Minister Dix and Dr. Gustafson provided notes on two more passings for today.

 “There have been two new COVID-19 related deaths in the Fraser Health region, for a total of 202 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic." 

The two public health officials also noted that there have been no new health-care facility outbreaks. In total, eight long-term care or assisted-living facilities and one acute-care facility have active outbreaks.

 

There are no new community outbreaks. However, community exposure events continue.

One area of the province where good news on the community outbreak theme can be found is on Haida Gwaii, as we  outlined earlier today, Northern Health has declared the July 24th outbreak of COVID at an end, with all 26 cases now considered recovered.

Towards the ongoing work on the provincial COVID response, today's statement made note of the need for prevention and reducing the ability for the virus to transmit.

“COVID-19 is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. What that means for British Columbians is that we are all learning to live our lives with the virus in our communities. 

Public health teams know what they need to do and so do you. We know that with appropriate protective measures, we can reduce the risk of COVID-19 and live our lives. 

COVID-19 prevention looks different in different places. In public, around people we do not know, we focus on giving people more space. In workplaces and classrooms where we interact with people we know, keeping our groups smaller, staying home when sick and reducing very close face-to-face contact is the goal.

 

The public health response is about reducing virus spread by establishing appropriate safety plans in businesses, schools and other settings, detecting and isolating new cases as quickly as possible and containing the spread when clusters occur."

You can review the full report for Friday 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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