BC health officials announce 542 new COVID-19 cases, seven more deaths

British Columbia health officials announced 542 new test-positive COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of recorded cases in the province to 81,909.

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 131 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 292 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 31 in the Island Health region, 43 in the Interior Health region, 44 in the Northern Health region, and one new case of a person who resides outside of Canada.

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There are 4,654 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 8,617 people under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. Of the active cases, 246 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 64 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

There have been 18 new confirmed COVID-19 cases identified as variants of concern in the province, for a total of 200 cases. Of the total cases, 11 are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 176 cases of the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant and 24 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant.

There have been seven new COVID-19-related deaths, for a total of 1,372 deaths in British Columbia.

A total of 75,819 people who tested positive have now recovered, and to date, 289,809 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in BC, 86,616 of which are second doses.