British Columbia's COVID count heading in the wrong direction, as Wednesday numbers surge

It was a rather sharp reminder that the battle with COVID is nowhere near an end, and that complacency among British Columbians is sending the COVID curve in the wrong direction.

Public Health Officer Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix made note of the sharp increase of today's COVID cases and how the need to return to established protocols is essential to keep the virus in check in BC.

“Today, we are announcing 85 new cases, including two new epidemiologically linked cases, for a total of 4,196 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 531 active cases of COVID-19 in the province and 3,469 people who tested positive have recovered. 

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

Looking across the province the reports of the virus include to date: 1,273 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 2,203 in the Fraser Health region, 150 in the Island Health region, 394 in the Interior Health region, 104 in the Northern Health region, an increase of another four  case reports from yesterday.

72 cases of COVID have been recorded for people who reside outside of Canada. 

Today also brought word one one new passing from the virus as well as a reminder of the alerts posted for travellers from the BC Centre for Disease Control.

“There has been one new COVID-19 related death, for a total of 196 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks in the region. In total, seven long-term care or assisted-living facilities and one acute-care facility have active outbreaks. 

There are no new community outbreaks. However, there continue to be community exposure events everywhere in the province and on flights into and out of British Columbia. 

Alerts are posted on the BC Centre for Disease Control’s website, as well as on health authorities’ websites, providing details on where the potential exposure occurred and what actions to take – whether you need to immediately self-isolate or monitor for symptoms. 

The pandemic is an unprecedented challenge for our province. And today we are reporting the third highest number of new cases we have seen in a day since the pandemic began. The majority of these cases are young people in the Lower Mainland and their exposures have been at events in the community. The cases we are seeing today reflect exposures from a week to 10 days ago. A significant number of cases are also linked to travel from out of province. 

We need to refocus on measures to flatten the curve of infection and protect British Columbians as we help our province recover. One of the most effective ways to keep people safe is through contact tracing, which starts with each person who has tested positive for COVID-19 understanding who their contacts may be to provide appropriate follow up and stop further transmission."

The Province also announced today that additional resources will be put towards tracing the path of the virus, with the hiring of 500 new health professionals towards contact tracing capacity in BC.

Earlier in the day Premier Horgan, Dr. Henry and the Health Minister spoke to the concerning notes of the COVID increase.

For the full statement from Wednesday see the report here. 

The BC Centre for Disease control has some valuable Coronavirus notes related to COVID-19 you can explore that information here.

You can learn more about the outbreak from both the Province and the Federal government from the links below:

Federal Government site

British Columbia Government site

The World Health Organization website also offers up the latest advisories on the global situation.

More from  Northern Health can be reviewed here 

You can review our archive of past statements and local information here.

Local governments and organizations have also provided for increased awareness of COVID-19 issues, the string of statements that came quickly at the end of the week can be reviewed here.

For notes from across Canada and British Columbia we have been archiving the latest items through our political portal Darcy McGee

Ottawa Observations

Victoria Viewpoints

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.