Increase in daily count and increase in anxiety levels over back to school make for some of the discussion today in the COVID 19 update

A slight increase in the reported cases of COVID, along with close to 900 active cases across the province made for the focus of the Wednesday report from Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix.

62 new cases, including two epi-linked case since we reported on the day, making for a total of 5,304 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 896 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 2,730 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases, and 4,199 people who tested positive have recovered.  

Currently, 21 individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19, seven of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation. 

Across the province, the various Health Authorities report the following levels to date: 

1,699 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 2,795 in the Fraser Health region, 170 in the Island Health region, 429 in the Interior Health region, 133 in the Northern Health region an increase of five from yesterday.

78 cases of COVID were reported in people who reside outside of Canada. 

Dr Henry and Minister Dix noted that there have been no new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 203 deaths in British Columbia.

Earlier in the day, Education Minister Rob Fleming introduced the return to school protocols for across the province, which you can review further here.

It was a topic that the two top public health officials had some thoughts towards in their statement today.

“In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is understandable that many people have had increased anxiety and concern for the well-being of their families and themselves. 

For parents in particular, there is the added challenge of navigating a new approach to in-class learning that includes a number of additional public health protocols and precautions. 

Today, the Ministry of Education provided the latest updates on back-to-school plans. These plans are the outcome of many minds coming together in every school district to take the public health guidelines that have been developed and apply them to meet the specific needs of each school district. 

This has not been an easy task. We commend the many people who have put the time and effort into ensuring the best approach possible for our students, teachers and staff. 

School will be new for everyone this year – just as how we spend time with friends and how we operate our businesses has required a different way of doing things than we have ever done before."

You can review the full COVId report for Wednesday 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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