122 Cases of COVID reported in Wednesday report, themes for fall preparation among the notes of the day

Case counts nearing 125 new reports on the day, and a range of additional information related to school notifications and preparation for the fall challenges ahead made for today's COVID-19 update from Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix. 

“Today, we are announcing 122 new cases, including five epi-linked cases, for a total of 7,498 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 1,614 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 2,966 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and 5,646 people who tested positive have recovered. 

Currently, 60 individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19, 23 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation." 

Across the province, the Regional Health Authorities have recorded the following case counts to date:

2,660 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 3,835 in the Fraser Health region, 195 in the Island Health region, 485 in the Interior Health region, 237 in the Northern Health region, that making for an increase of twelve from Tuesday.

85 cases of COVID have been reported among people who reside outside of Canada.

There were no new deaths to report today from the reports of all of the province's health authorities.

With school  now fully back in session, the BC CDC will be providing updates on any notifications or clusters found across the provincial school system, today's statement provided some background towards that project.

“Beginning today, the BCCDC website will also link to regional health authorities' school notification pages, providing the date and type of notification (outbreak, cluster or exposure) for impacted schools. Fraser Health’s school notification page is available now and the other regional health authorities will have theirs ready soon. "

That table can be reviewed here.

As part of today's information update, Dr. Henry and Minister Dix also outlined a range of measures to be put in place related to safer alternatives to the toxic drug supply in the province, you can review those notes here.

The two public health officials also outlined some of the ongoing themes to be aware of heading towards the fall months and how British Columbians can continue to work towards reducing the case counts that have been on the increase in recent weeks.

“As we work to support each other, one of the biggest concerns with COVID-19 is the unidentified spread of the virus in our communities. This is why getting tested as soon as you have symptoms is so important. 

With the knowledge of new cases or clusters, public health teams can quickly complete contact tracing, notify those who may be exposed and more importantly, contain the further spread. “It doesn’t help to shame and blame those in our communities who have the virus, because it quite often discourages others from coming forward and getting tested, putting all of us at risk. 

Rather, we need to show compassion and care, not judgment, when there is a new case in our community. 

Large gatherings have been a steady source of transmission. However, many of the new cases we are seeing in the past weeks are from small gatherings where people see different groups of friends on different days – inadvertently spreading the virus to many people. 

Let’s not forget that if we are close enough, doing enough and with enough different people, the likelihood of transmitting the virus significantly goes up. That is why it is so important to make our social interactions a ‘small and safe six,’ keeping to our immediate households and the same close friends only."

As part of today's information update, Dr. Henry and Minister Dix also outlined a range of measures to be put in place related to safer alternatives to the toxic drug supply in the province, you can review those notes here.

You can review the full COVID-19 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, those past advisories  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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