Over 10,000 active cases of COVID-19 now reported in BC, with 673 new cases recorded today

Another day of high case counts, reports of passings and guidance on what to watch for to differentiate between COVID and four or colds, made for the theme of today's COVID report from Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix.

“Today, we are reporting 673 new cases of COVID-19, including six epi-linked cases, for a total of 44,776 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 10,009 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 358 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 93 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation. 

Currently, 10,388 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and a further 32,963 people who tested positive have recovered. "

Across the province, the Health Authority's reported the following case counts:  145 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 403 new cases in the Fraser Health region, four in the Island Health region, 66 in the Interior Health region, 47 in the Northern Health region, which brings the Northern BC total to 1,462 since January.

There have been eight new cases of COVID reported from people who reside outside of Canada. 

The Doctor and Minister also had a short update on the ongoing vaccine rollout program

“Yesterday, 806 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were given to B.C. front-line health-care workers, for a total of 1,215 doses to date. Starting next week, the province will receive weekly vaccine deliveries for clinics in every health region across the province. 

There have been 21 new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 713 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic."

The two top public health officials also provided a short list of what to watch for should you be feeling ill and wonder if it is COVID.

“Here in B.C., the majority of new cases continue to be directly connected to known, confirmed cases of COVID-19. As a result, if you are a close contact of someone with the virus or of someone who is part of a cluster or outbreak and you develop any symptoms, you should arrange to get tested immediately. 

If you have not been around anyone that has COVID-19 that you are aware of, the guidance for when to get a test has been updated to make it clearer for everyone. This is because we know many COVID-19 symptoms are similar to influenza or colds. 

There are four symptoms that are highly predictive of the virus: fever or chills, cough, loss of sense of smell or taste, and difficulty breathing. If you have any of these symptoms, you should arrange to get tested right away. 

If you have one or two of any of the other symptoms, you can wait 24 hours. These symptoms include sore throat, loss of appetite, extreme fatigue, headache, body aches, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. If you feel the same or worse after 24 hours, then you should also get tested. 

As always, if you are uncertain, contact your health provider or call 811."

You can review the Thursday statement 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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