Tuesday COVID update sees continued high daily case counts in the mid five hundreds

 

The results remain stubbornly high when it comes to daily counts of new cases of COVID, with another 559 British Columbians listed as testing positive for the coronavirus today, the continuation of a curve that does not show much of a sign of bending.

In addition to their observations on the level of positive case counts, Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix also outlined the next stage of the vaccination program which should ramp up significantly over the next few weeks.

“Today, we are reporting 559 new cases, including 29 epi-linked cases, for a total of 77,822 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 4,677 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 7,881 people under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. A further 71,753 people who tested positive have recovered. 

Of the active cases, 238 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 69 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation. 

There has been one new COVID-19 related death, for a total of 1,336 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost loved ones to COVID-19."

Across the provincial health authority regions the daily count was as follows:  132 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 278 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 39 in the Island Health region, 43 in the Interior Health region, 

There were 66 in the Northern Health region that makes for 4,417 total cases of COVID in northern British Columbia since the virus arrived last January.

As well there was one new case of a COVID reported in BC by a person who resides outside of Canada. 

When it comes to vaccinations to date, 224,354 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 58,896 of which are second doses.

And looking towards the weeks and months ahead the two public health officials noted that the next focus for attention will be Seniors and elders over 80  and that more vaccine volumes are anticipated to arrive.

"We continue to ready our province for widespread mass vaccination clinics, which will begin in April. We are moving forward carefully and thoughtfully to ensure our systems and our health authorities have the tools and resources to take on the significant task ahead. 

In parallel, with more vaccine increasingly available, we are turning our focus to people aged over 80 in our communities, who will receive vaccine information in the next two weeks. 

It is important to know everyone over 18 years old will have access to a COVID-19 vaccine and no one will be left behind."  

One very positive trend on the day were the notes on how the case counts at Long Term Care Facilities have dropped to zero in recent days, that after a successful vaccination program.

You can review the full statement here.

BC CDC Data for British Columbia for February 23 2021

BC CDC Data for Northern Health Region for February 23 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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