BC health officials to give written COVID-19 update on Tuesday afternoon

Health officials in British Columbia are scheduled to give a written COVID-19 update on Tuesday afternoon.

The announcement follows Monday’s live update, which included three reporting periods. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced a total of 1,236 new test-positive COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of recorded cases in BC to 70,952.

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There were 428 cases reported from Friday to Saturday, 465 from Saturday to Sunday, and 343 from Sunday to Monday. Over the weekend, 13 deaths were also reported, for a total of 1,259 deaths in the province.

There are currently 3,976 active cases of COVID-19 in BC, with 6,900 people under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases.

Currently, 234 individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19, 69 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

During Monday’s update, Henry also expressed her concern over the potential rapid spread of both the UK and South Africa COVID-19 variants in the province.

She emphasized that if not managed properly, the new variants wouldn’t just lead to another wave but could also result in the transition of one pandemic to another.

She noted, however, that with 40 cases of the variants currently identified in BC, there have been no hospitalizations as a direct result, and the majority of transmission seems, for now at least, to be predominantly within households. Of the 40 cases, only three are currently active.