There is little to note of a change in the current level of new COVID cases reported, with today's update from Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix delivering a report of 438 new cases of the coronavirus.
Something which is about the same level as has been reported day in and out for a number of weeks.
It was also noted that the data review has been revised as of today, that due to a systems issue that occurred last week, an additional 254 cases were not previously reported in the dashboard cases by day data. These cases have now been reallocated into the total cases by day count..
Today's briefing did note of a continued rise in variant cases of the virus as well as how the province will accelerate its vaccination program with the recent approval of the Astra-Zeneca Serunm of India vaccine.
There are 4,679 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 8,445 people under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. A further 75,255 people who tested positive have recovered.
Of the active cases, 243 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 63 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.
“There have been two new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,365 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost loved ones to COVID-19."
Across the province, the totals of new cases were as follows: 137 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 249 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 19 in the Island Health region, 16 in the Interior Health region,
Across Northern BC there were 17 new cases reported in the Northern Health region, the total number of cases recorded in the North since January of last year is now listed at 4,469 cases.
There were no new cases of COVID recorded by people who reside outside of Canada.
The latest count of variants notes that there There have been 22 new confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern in our province, for a total of 182 cases. Of the total cases, eight cases are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 159 cases of the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant and 23 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant.
When it comes to vaccinations to date, 283,182 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 86,537 of which are second doses.
Doctor Henry also provided some further guidance on the vaccine roll out program as part of today's briefing.
The experience in our communities has clearly shown us that the older you are, the higher your risk.
“More recently, we have also learned that the approved vaccines are highly effective at providing protection with the initial dose. This means we can safely adjust the time between doses.
Setting second doses at 16 weeks allows us to use our available supply to protect far more people, far sooner.
The addition of the newly approved AstraZeneca-Serum Institute of India viral vector vaccine also means we can look at accelerating availability of vaccine for essential workers, including for first responders and those who are unable to work from home.
While this is encouraging news for everyone, we are not yet at that important level of protection that we need to be at to put aside the public health restrictions. We have to have the confidence that we are slowing the spread in a sustained way, which means we need to continue to stay committed to using our layers of protection, to stay small and stay local right now.”
“We need to keep following public health orders so we can all get through this next period safely until more vaccines are ready. In the meantime, orders will continue to be enforced for those who refuse to do their part and risk undoing the progress we’ve made so far.” -- Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
The BC Centre for Disease control has some valuable Coronavirus notes related to COVID-19 you can explore that information here.
The British Columbia government also extended the current State of Emergency, which is now in place for another two weeks, with a review set for March 16th.
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| BC CDC Data for British Columbia for March 2 2021 |
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| BC CDC Data for Northern Health region for March 2 2021 |
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
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