Prospect of increased COVD vaccine supplies and a call to be cautious this weekend as variant case reports begin to increase

British Columbia's case count remains in the mid 400's and the number of deaths increased a bit today, with the concerns of variant cases remaining on the minds of the province's top health officials heading into the Family Day weekend.

Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix hosted the final information session for the week.

“Today, we are reporting a total of 445 new cases, including six epi-linked cases, for a total of 72,750 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 4,347 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 226 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 61 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation. 

Currently, 7,035 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and a further 67,008 people who tested positive have recovered. 

There have been 10 new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,288 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost loved ones to COVID-19.

Across the province, the Health Authority's reported the following case counts for Friday: 135 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 218 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 15 in the Island Health region, 44 in the Interior Health region, 

There were 30 new cases of COVID recorded in the Northern Health region, which brings the Northern health region total number of cases to 3,969 since January 2020.

The province saw three new cases of COVID reported in people who reside outside of Canada but currently are in BC. 

Today's report noted of 162,982 doses of COVID-19 vaccine having been administered in B.C., 17,562 of which are second doses. 

The two top health officials observed that British Columbians should begin to see increasing numbers of vaccinations taking place next week as more supplies begin to arrive after these last few weeks of delayed or suspended shipments.

“Starting next week, deliveries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will resume, significantly increasing our ability to continue with our provincewide immunization program. These first-phase immunizations focus on those who are highest risk of severe illness and death, and front-line health-care workers."

This weeks final report, looked ahead towards the long weekend with a reminder for British Columbians to hold true to the measures in place, noting of the rise in variant cases and concerns they are raising.

“This weekend, we need to pay particular attention to ensure the progress we have made is not wasted. This is even more important as variants of concern circulate in our communities.

You can can review more of today's statement here.  

BC CDC Data for British Columbia as of February 12, 2021

BC CDC Data for Northern Health Region as of February 12, 2021

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, those past advisories  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