"Do not blow this for the rest of us:" BC premier calls out 20 to 39-year-olds

Mar 30 2021, 5:32 pm

BC Premier John Horgan didn’t mince words this week while singling out a particular demographic he perceives to be flouting the province’s COVID-19 rules and restrictions.

“We’ve come a great distance, but we cannot blow it now,” Horgan said during a press conference on Monday. “We have weeks and weeks to go, and we need to redouble our efforts to focus on individual responsibility for the greater good.”

Speaking at the day’s scheduled COVID-19 briefing, Horgan was joined by Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix. Horgan said he knows that people who tune in regularly to the briefings “are following the rules and paying attention.”

However, “the cohort from 20 to 39-year-olds are not paying as much attention to these broadcasts, and quite frankly are putting the rest of us in a challenging situation. My appeal to you is do not blow this for the rest of us.”

The premier’s comments came the same day the province confirmed that there had been 2,518 new test-positive COVID-19 cases since Friday, bringing the total number of recorded cases in the province to 98,165.

Broken down by health region, health officials said this equated to 816 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 1,280 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 142 in the Island Health region, 156 in the Interior Health region, 121 in the Northern Health region, and three new people who normally reside outside of Canada.

There were also six new COVID-19-related deaths, for a total of 1,455 deaths in British Columbia.

Of the active cases, 299 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 79 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

A total of 89,722 people who tested positive have now recovered, and to date, 699,092 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-SII COVID-19 vaccines have been administered. Of those, 87,289 are second doses.

There are 321 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 variants of concern in the province, for a total of 2,233 cases. This includes 1,915 cases of B.1.1.7 (UK variant), 48 cases of B.1.351 (South Africa variant) and 270 cases of P.1 (Brazil variant).

Of the variant cases, 413 are active and the remaining cases have recovered.

Eric ZimmerEric Zimmer

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