Health officials announce 122 new coronavirus cases in BC

Health officials in British Columbia have announced 122 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of known cases in the province to 7,489.

In a written statement, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said that broken down by health region, this equates to 2,660 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 3,835 in the Fraser Health region, 195 in the Island Health region, 485 in the Interior Health region, 237 in the Northern Health region and 85 cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

As it stands, there are 1,614 active cases of COVID-19 in the province and 2,966 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases.

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There are also 60 individuals who are hospitalized with COVID-19, 23 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

There have been no new COVID-19-related deaths, for a total of 219 deaths in British Columbia.

There have been no new healthcare facility outbreaks or community outbreaks, although there continue to be community exposure events.

“Beginning today, the BCCDC website will also link to regional health authorities’ school notification pages, providing the date and type of notification (outbreak, cluster or exposure) for impacted schools. Fraser Health’s school notification page is available now and the other regional health authorities will have theirs ready soon,” noted officials.

Henry and Dix added that while large gatherings have been a regular source of transmission, many new cases are from smaller gatherings where “people see different groups of friends on different days – inadvertently spreading the virus to many people.”

“Let’s not forget that if we are close enough, doing enough and with enough different people, the likelihood of transmitting the virus significantly goes up. That is why it is so important to make our social interactions a ‘small and safe six,’ keeping to our immediate households and the same close friends only.”

A total of 5,646 people who tested positive have now recovered.