Focus on Community clusters and business settings as daily COVID case count spikes to 546 in BC for Thursday

The total case count for Thursday jumped significantly over the last 24 hours, with 546 new reports of positive cases of COVID reported the province today since yesterday.

"Today, we are reporting 546 new cases, including five epi-linked cases, for a total of 66,265 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 4,455 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 291 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 75 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation. 

Currently, 7,176 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and a further 59,141 people who tested positive have recovered. 

There have been 12 new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,184 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 Authority regions made note of the following case totals for the last 24 hours. 

Since the last report there have been 174 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 218 new cases in the Fraser Health sd, 30 in the Island Health region, 70 in the Interior Health region,,

There were 51 cases reported in the Northern Health region over the last 24 hours , that brings the total for Northern BC to 3,334 since the coronavirus arrived in Canada one year ago.

There have also been three new cases  of COVID in BC, with people who reside outside of Canada.

As for the province's vaccine roll out program:  To date, 127,255 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 4,185 of which are second doses. 

With many of the increased numbers coming from community clusters and business setting, Dr. Bonnie Henry put some focus on those areas for today's review.

“In recent weeks, we have seen an increase in community clusters and exposures in businesses, and we remind business owners now is not the time to let things slip. WorkSafeBC and environmental health teams have stepped up inspections and will take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of communities, including shutting a business if required. 

Equally important, all businesses that can accommodate employees to work from home should ensure that continues. The fewer people you see, the safer everyone will be." 

 You can can review more of today's COVID statement here.  

BC CDC data for  British Columbia as of January 28 2021

BC CDC data for  the Northern Health region as of January 28 2021

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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