B.C. Covid cases setting new records over long weekend

Apr 3, 2021 | 4:35 PM

B.C.’s Health Ministry updated the Covid-19 cases midway through the Easter long weekend, and the news was not good.

New daily case records were set from Apr. 1-2 (Thursday to Friday) with 1,018, and from Friday to Saturday, Apr. 2-3, with 1,072, for a total of 102,970 since the pandemic started.

The previous daily high was recorded last Wednesday, Mar. 31, with 1,013.

“Please note that some data are not available over the long weekend, including data on variants and hospitalizations,” said a statement from provincial heath officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix. “Ninety British Columbians are in intensive care.”

Of the new cases, 1,761 were from the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health regions, which is 84 per cent of the 2,090 cases.

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Interior Health had 149 new cases (7 per cent), with 709 the Vancouver Coastal Health region (33.9 per cent) 1,052 in Fraser Health (50.3 per cent), 147 in Island Health (7 per cent), 33 in Northern Health (1.6 per cent) and no new cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

To date, 856,801 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-SII COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C., 87,455 of which are second doses.

“We are working hard to deliver an easy-to-use provincial booking system for all British Columbians and know everyone is eager to book their appointment, beginning next week,” Henry and Dix stated.

Vaccine bookings for people 72 and older, Indigenous peoples 18 and over, and individuals who are clinically extremely vulnerable continue throughout the long weekend. The AstraZeneca/COVISHEILD vaccine is also available to people between the ages of 55 and 65 on the Lower Mainland – B.C.’s highest transmission area.

“In partnership with the BC Pharmacy Association, we plan to expand the AstraZeneca vaccine program outside of the Lower Mainland by the end of next week to more communities throughout the province, including Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Parksville, Prince George, Quesnel, Terrace, Vernon and Victoria,” Henry and Dix stated in a news release Saturday.

Dix and Henry advised everyone not to travel outside their community or health authority for vacation or recreation right now.

“Consider day trips only or staying overnight in a local campground or hotel. We have seen too many cases of people travelling outside their health authority region and not using their layers of protection, leading to outbreaks and clusters in their home community.”

For more on the provincial health officer’s orders and guidance, visit here.

by Pete McIntyre

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