Friday, May 21, 2021

Long weekend on the mind of Public Health Officials as Friday COVID case count inches up to 420 new cases on the day

With travel restrictions in place for the unofficial first weekend of summer and the promise of some news on potential relaxation of health measures on the horizon for Tuesday, British Columbia's public health officials will be watching with keen interest to see if British Columbians hold true to the guidance to help bring down the curve of COVID.

As it has been all week, the reports from the BC CDC have been an up and down affair, with today's review an increase from the totals of Thursday, but still well below the mark we were at just a week or so ago in the province.

The Friday report came by way of a statement from Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix.

 “Today, we are reporting 420 new cases, for a total of 141,373 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 4,507 active cases of COVID-19 in the province and a further 135,068 people who tested positive have recovered. 

Of the active cases, 319 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 107 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation. 

There have been six new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,667 deaths in British Columbia. Our condolences are with the family, friends and caregivers of the people who have died as a result of COVID-19.  “

Across the province, the regional Health Authority's relayed the following data: 84 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 240 new cases in the Fraser Health region, seven in the Island Health region, and 58 in the Interior Health region. 

There were  31new cases recorded in the Northern Health region which brings the Northern BC total to 7,555 cases of COVID recorded since January 2020. 

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

Today's vaccination program updated observed that  2,744,020 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to adults 18 and over in B.C., 142,406 of which are second doses. 

With the first weekend of the summer of 2021 here, the Provincial Health Authorities once again reinforced the need to observe all of the measures in place, while offering up some hope of improving news to arrive on Tuesday.

 “This long weekend is the time to stick with all of the public health orders and travel restrictions – staying small, staying local and getting registered for your vaccine if you have not already done so. 

We need to keep pushing COVID-19 down to be able to safely turn the dial on the current restrictions. The only way we can do that is to keep using our safety layers and getting more and more people immunized. 

On Tuesday, the details of the Restart Plan will be shared with everyone. At that point, you’ll be able to start to plan for what that means for you, your family and your business. There are no changes for individuals or businesses until that time. 

We’ll be taking a gradual approach to our restart, monitoring our progress as we go to ensure cases, outbreaks and hospitalizations don’t start to creep up. And, we need everyone to also do their part – this long weekend and in the weeks ahead. Have a safe and enjoyable weekend.”

The full statement for Friday can be reviewed here.


BC CDC data for British Columbia for May 21, 2021

BC CDC data for Northern Health Region for May 21, 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


Ottawa Observations


Victoria Viewpoints

 



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