Another day of COVID case reports in the 500's, a slight dip in active cases as well as some good and some disappointing news on vaccines for BC

Friday's COVID information update from Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix for the most part delivered a familiar refrain today, with case counts in the low 500's, continued passings and a continuing, if slight decline in the number of active cases.

The wrap up for the week of information sharing came by way of a statement issued this afternoon.

“Today, we are reporting 509 new cases, including nine epi-linked cases, for a total of 60,117 cases in British Columbia. “There are 4,604 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 349 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 68 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.  

Currently, 7,132 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and a further 53,115 people who tested positive have recovered. 

There have been nine new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,047 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic."

Across British Columbia, the daily case breakdown came from notes fro all of the provincial health authorities: 101 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 260 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 13 in the Island Health region, 86 in the Interior Health region and 49 in the Northern Health region, that brings the Northern BC total case count of COVID to 2,745 since January one year ago.

There were no new cases of COVID-19 reported in British Columbia by people who reside outside of Canada. 

When it came to the vaccine roll out program, Dr. Henry and Minister Dix had good news and bad news to share on the day, first sharing that there have been 75,914 British Columbians vaccinated to date:

“As of today, thousands of people working and living in long-term care homes, health-care workers and those in remote or at-risk Indigenous communities have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine."  

That news however was followed by an update on vaccine supply delivery that highlights the challenging start for the program.

“We are disappointed to hear today there will be a short-term delay in the delivery of some of the Pfizer vaccines to British Columbia in the coming weeks as the company upgrades its production facility. We are working closely with the federal government to determine how this might impact our immunization rollout in the immediate term, and we will have more to share in the coming days."

You can review more of today's 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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