Close to 1800 new cases of COVID reported over three days in Monday provincial report

The pace of daily cases of COVID showed now slowing this weekend, with 1,785 cases reported in the period from Friday to Monday, the vast majority of them taken from the two largest population areas in the province of the Lower Mainland.

The increasing case count raising some concerns for Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix who delivered the COVID update live today.

“Today, we are reporting on three periods: from March 19 to 20, we had 556 new cases, from March 20 to 21 we had 598 new cases and in the last 24 hours, we had a further 631 new cases. 

This results in a total of 1,785 new cases, including two epi-linked cases, for a total of 92,571 cases in British Columbia. 

There are 5,290 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 9,333 people under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. 

A further 85,746 people who tested positive have recovered. “Of the active cases, 303 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 80 of whom are in intensive care. 

The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation.  

There have been 16 new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,437 deaths in British Columbia."

Across the province, the reports of new cases by Health Authority were as follows:  469 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 1,010 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 89 in the Island Health region, 84 in the Interior Health region. 

133 new cases were reported  in the Northern Health region, which brings the Northern BC total to 5,576 cases of COVID-19 recorded since January of 2020.

There were no new cases reported by people in British Columbia who reside outside of Canada. “

The rise of variants remains a concern as well and as of today there have been 166 new confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern in our province, for a total of 1,366 cases. Of the total cases, 237 are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 1,240 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant, 41 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant and 85 cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant. 

 British Columbia's vaccination program continues to accelerate and to date, 539,408 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-SII COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C., 87,161 of which are second doses. Vaccine appointment bookings are open for people 78 or older, and Indigenous peoples over age 55.

In Prince Rupert today was the last day for the community wide COVID vaccination clinic at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre, anyone in the community that did not book an appointment over the last eight days can contact Northern Health to learn when the next opportunity for a first vaccination shot will be.

Doctor Henry and Health Minister Dix also took note of the recent surge of cases, particular in the Fraser Health and Lower Mainland region.

“We have seen an uptick in new cases and clusters of COVID-19 in the Lower Mainland. This is a concern for all of us because, as we have seen before, this increase can quickly escalate to other regions of our province. 

These escalating new cases reflect the transmission is in workplaces and indoor gatherings that contravene public health orders. 

Indoor gatherings – of any size – continue to be high risk. The only safe place for us to gather with our small groups of friends or family right now – with no more than 10 people – is outside."

More notes on Monday's report can be reviewed here.   

BC CDC Data for BC For March 22 2021

BC CDC Data for Northern Health For March 22 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