New COVID-19 cases in BC jump to 617: health officials

British Columbia health officials announced 617 new test-positive COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of recorded cases in the province to 75,327.

In a joint written statement, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said that broken down by health region, this equates to 146 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 342 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 19 in the Island Health region, 17 in the Interior Health region, 92 in the Northern Health region, and one new case of someone who resides outside of Canada.

There are 4,348 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 224 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 60 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation.

Currently, 7,440 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases.

There have been four new COVID-19-related deaths, for a total of 1,321 deaths in British Columbia.

To date, 180,691 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in BC, 29,952 of which are second doses.

“We remind everyone about the importance of using all of our layers of protection: maintaining a safe distance from others, washing our hands regularly, staying home when we are ill, using a mask in all public spaces and having robust COVID-19 safety plans in all businesses,” noted Henry and Dix in today’s statement.

“Equally important is the need to ensure you are following all province-wide public health orders and restrictions – especially with the uptick in cases in the Lower Mainland and northern region.”