B.C. health officials are reporting 542 new cases of COVID-19 along with seven more deaths today.
There were 43 new cases in Interior Health, with another 292 cases in Fraser Health, 131 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 44 in Northern Health, and 31 on Vancouver Island. There was also one new case in a person who normally lives outside of Canada.
Provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, also reported 18 new confirmed cases of the so-called variants of concern taking that total to 200 cases – 176 of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant and 24 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant. Eleven of those cases are active.
Active cases are at 4,654 people with 246 in hospital, 64 in ICU. A further 8,617 people being actively monitored by public health teams as a result of an exposure to a known case.
Henry also says she is pleased that the National Advisory Council on Immunization (NACI), as well as Canada’s Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health, are in support of delaying the second dose of the COVID vaccine to four months after the first. Newfoundland and Labrador said today it is extending the interval between the first and second doses to four months, days after British Columbia announced they were doing so.
“Our goal is to protect as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, through the available COVID-19 vaccines,” she said. “With a single primer dose, these vaccines are helping to stop outbreaks and reduce serious illness and death.”
“Setting the second booster dose at 16 weeks allows us to expand the number of people who will have access to these safe and effective vaccines, and may provide more durable and longer lasting protection.”
As it stands, there have been 289,809 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine administered in B.C. – an increase of about 6,000 from yesterday. Of that, 86,616 were second doses.
“More people vaccinated – whether in Nanaimo, Nelson or North Vancouver – makes all of us safer. Until we have that next level of community protection, so does staying the course with our safety measures, staying small and local. Let’s keep going and get to those post-pandemic days.”
There are now 75,819 people who are considered to have recovered from COVID-19, about 92 per cent of the total of 81,909 cases in British Columbia.
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