HEALTH Minister Adrian Dix and Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry on Friday announced 139 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), including seven epi-linked cases.

They added: “We are also reporting 40 historic cases that were tested between August 11 and September 16 for people who did not have personal health numbers. All these cases have been previously investigated and managed by Vancouver Coastal Health, but had not been entered into the data system. This brings our total to 7,842 cases in British Columbia.”

There were three new COVID-19-related deaths; the total number of deaths now stands at 223 deaths in the province.

There are 1,803 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 3,075 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and 5,797 people who tested positive have recovered.

Currently, 59 individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19, 20 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 2,817 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 4,007 in the Fraser Health region, 196 in the Island Health region, 492 in the Interior Health region, 244 in the Northern Health region and 86 cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks and the outbreak at Royal Arch Masonic Home long-term care facility (second outbreak) has been declared over. In total, 10 long-term care or assisted-living facilities and five acute-care facilities have active outbreaks.

There have been no new community outbreaks, although there continue to be community exposure events.

Alerts are posted on the BC Centre for Disease Control’s (BCCDC) website, as well as on health authorities’ websites, providing details on where the potential exposure occurred and what actions to take – whether you need to self-isolate or monitor for symptoms.

For schools, public health teams will contact individuals through contact tracing. Schools will continue to issue alerts when a school exposure has occurred and action is required. Supporting these protocols, the BCCDC website and health authorities are also publishing notifications.

Dix and Henry added: “We need to push the COVID-19 curve back down and we have the knowledge, the tools and resources to do just that. Always using your layers of protection and choosing to stick with your ‘safe six’ will help all of us this weekend and every weekend ahead.

“The cases we are seeing today are a direct result of how we spent our Labour Day long weekend. Let’s break the chain of transmission and turn this trend around.

“No one intends to pass the virus onto friends or family, but it is very easy to do. It can take up to two weeks for symptoms of COVID-19 to develop and in that time, we can inadvertently spread it to others.

“That is why the actions we take as individuals today are so important to the well-being of our communities tomorrow. Let’s choose safe, let’s choose small and let’s choose to protect the people we care about most.”