PROVINCIAL Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix on Monday announced a total of 3,289 new COVID-19 cases over the past three days, for a total of 112,829 cases in British Columbia.
They said: “From April 9 to 10, we had 1,283 new cases. From April 10 to 11, we had 1,036 new cases and in the last 24-hours, we had a further 970 new cases.”
There have been 18 new COVID-19-related deaths, for a total of 1,513 deaths in the province.
There are 9,937 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 15,985 people under public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. A further 101,216 people who tested positive have recovered.
Of the active cases, 368 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 121 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.
There have been 741 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 1,957 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 167 in the Island Health region, 299 in the Interior Health region, 125 in the Northern Health region and no new cases of people who reside outside of Canada.
There are two new outbreaks at Dufferin Care Centre and Sunset Manor (Fraser Health).
Henry and Dix said: “In B.C., 1,112,101 of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-SII COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, 87,744 of which are second doses.
“People 65 and older, Indigenous peoples 18 and over, and individuals who have received their ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ letter are now eligible to receive their vaccine. People 40 and older can also register for the age-based program at: Gov.bc.ca/getvaccinated
“Once you are eligible to receive your vaccine, you will be contacted to book an appointment.
“The parallel worker program also continues to focus on transmission hot spots – high-risk workplaces in the highest-spread locations in our province. For those identified as eligible within this program, please be patient. Like our age-based program, not everyone will get it at once, but everyone will have their turn.”
They added: “COVID-19 is a virus that is transmitted by people to people – often to those we are closest to. As we face a surge in new cases and hospitalizations, we need to focus on the things that will slow the spread and break the chains of transmission.
“To get to the end as quickly as possible, we need stay local – in our immediate neighbourhood as much as possible. We need to stay small – with our households, work or school cohorts only. And we need to use all of our layers of protection all of the time – without exception.
“It is up to each one of us to do our part, but it is our collective efforts that will make the difference.
“Starting today, WorkSafeBC will be supporting public health teams, working with businesses where transmission has occurred in the workplace.
“This order is one more way that public health teams across the province are doing all they can to slow this pandemic down.
“For our health-care workers treating patients in critical care, our loved ones who are not yet vaccinated and our friends who have gone to work without pause, now is the time to show them through our actions that they are not forgotten. We do that by doing our part, and the time to do that is now.”