B.C. COVID cases on the rise, additional ‘measures’ to be announced

COVID-19 cases continue to rise in British Columbia.

The province reported 2,550 new infections since Friday which is an average of 850 per day, up from the 789 cases last Friday.

The total includes 911 new cases on Saturday, 832 on Sunday and 807 today.

The number of Omicron variant cases in B.C. will be provided on Tuesday. At last report on Friday, B.C, had 302 of that variant including five in the Interior.

Interior Health had 268 new cases today (up from 131 Friday), and active cases are down by 40 to 648. Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health had the most new cases with 909 and 877 respectively.

“Public health is monitoring the increase in cases in British Columbia and developments in other jurisdictions, and will outline additional COVID-19 measures during Tuesday’s regular media briefing,” the Health Ministry’s daily update stated.

B.C.’s new COVID restrictions took effect today which include limiting capacities on venues of over 1,000 seats to 50 per cent, and restricting the number of people able to attend indoor personal gatherings.

There are 5,435 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 185 people in hospital and 77 in intensive care.

Since Friday, three more people have died of COVID issues, one each in the Fraser, Northern and Island Health regions.

From Dec. 10–16, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 39.4 per cent of cases. From Dec. 3–16, they accounted for 71.4 per cent of hospitalizations.

As of today, 87.3 per cent of eligible people five and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 82.6 per cent have had two doses and 17 per cent (726,994) have received a third dose.