Wednesday's COVID count hovers near 1,000 case per day level, as officials reinforce need to adhere to COVID measures in BC

The Lower Mainland continues to be focus for the majority of concern when it comes to this current surge of COVID and the third wave to hit the province, with eighty percent of the new cases recorded today coming from either Fraser Health or Vancouver Coast Health.

Today's message from Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix also reinforced the need to follow the current measures, with exception, as the province looks to come out of this wave and allows for the vaccination rate to continue to build.

 “Today, we are reporting 997 new cases, including eight epi-linked cases, for a total of 106,985 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 8,728 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 14,602 people under public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. 

A further 96,626 people who tested positive have recovered. “Of the active cases, 330 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 105 of whom are in intensive care. 

The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

There have been two new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,491 deaths in British Columbia."  

Across the Province, the regional health authority's recorded the following counts in the last 24 hours.

 356 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 465 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 67 in the Island Health region, 91 in the Interior Health region, 

There were 18 new cases recorded in the Northern Health region, that makes the Northern BC total since January of 2020 now set at 6,312 cases of COVID reported.

There were no new cases of COVID reported in BC by people who reside outside of Canada. 

Variants continue to make for considerable concern and study,  currently BC has 3,766 confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern in our province. Additional whole genome sequencing has not been completed since the last report. Of the total cases, 266 are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 2,837 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant, 51 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant and 878 cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant.

The province continues to expand on the vaccination program in BC, to date, 946,096 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-SII COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C., 87,504 of which are second doses. 

That brings the total to near 20% of those who are eligible for a vaccine in B.C.

Doctor Henry and Minister Dix also had some additional notes on the vaccination program noting of news received related to the dosage schedule that the province has adopted, as well as to reinforce the need to continue to follow our COVID related measures as outlined.

“Today, the National Advisory Committee on Immunizations provided clear advice on vaccine doses, confirming that up to 16 weeks between doses provides for the greatest level of community-wide protection and is therefore optimal for everyone, irrespective of any underlying health condition. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be ever changing, and we are also continuing to evolve and adapt our pandemic response. As part of this, we are actively monitoring and screening for all of the virus strains to understand how they may impact us and what additional action may be required to keep our communities safe. 

We know that no matter what mutation may be prevalent, following all of the public health orders and using all of our layers of protection – without exception – is the best thing we can do to keep ourselves and each other safe. 

We all have a choice – to bend the rules, or do our part to flatten our curve. No matter how tired of this pandemic we may be, let’s make the right choice today.”

The full statement for Wednesday can be reviewed here.   

BC CDC data for British Columbia for April 7 2021

BC CDC data for Northern BC for April 7 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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