BC adds another 737 cases to the COVID count, closing in on close to 10,000 active cases in the province

Friday's COVID-19 statement from Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix relayed another day of 700 plus cases and a trend towards the 10,000 mark of active cases in the province. 

With the two top public health officials making note of the sad news of another 11 British Columbians passing away from COVID related conditions.

Today's update also reminded British Columbians to stay with the range of measures in place in response to COVID, so as to allow for an opportunity to roll out the upcoming vaccine program without any further surge in case numbers.

“Today, we are reporting 737 new cases of COVID-19, including six epi-linked cases, for a total of 40,797 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 9,589 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 342 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 87 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation. 

Currently, 12,008 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. A further 29,598 people who tested positive have recovered. 

There have been 11 new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 598 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic."

Across the province, the Health Authorities reported the following count of cases for today as follows:

119 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 469 new cases in the Fraser Health region, eight in the Island Health region, 99 in the Interior Health region, 41 in the Northern Health region, bringing the total number of cases in Northern BC to 1,240 

There was one new case of COVID in BC of a person who resides outside of Canada. 

With a vaccine delivery program on the horizon, Dr. Henry and Minister Dix reinforced the need to keep to current measures that are in place so that the province doesn't fall backwards as it heads into the immunization stage of the provincial response.

“COVID-19 continues to circulate in our communities and the risk to all of us remains high. This is why it is so important to follow the public health orders and to use our layers of protection until the vaccine is available for all of us. 

This weekend, take a step back from the usual holiday rush. Take the time to get outside and enjoy a quieter weekend with those in your household. Show your loved ones you care by staying local and staying away right now. 

We want to ensure we are moving into this stage of our COVID-19 response in the best position possible, which means working together to make sure we don’t fall back as we move forward with our immunization program."

    

You can review Friday's update from the Doctor and Health Minister 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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