Another day, another record for COVID-19 cases

It is another record that no one in British Columbia will be happy about.

The province set a new daily high for new COVID-19 cases today with 1,528 (changed later in day). The majority are in the Vancouver Coastal, Island and Fraser Health regions. The total surpassed Tuesday’s 1,308 total which broke the previous record set on April 10, 2021.

Interior Health had 136 new infections, which was down from the 138 on Tuesday. IH now has 706 active cases, up 11 from the previous day.

B.C. has 7,307 active cases with 187 people in hospital and 71 in intensive care.

Six more people have died from the virus, for an overall total of 2,409. Three of the fatal cases were in Fraser Health, two in Island Health and one in Northern Health.

An update on cases of the Omicron variant will be provided in Thursday’s update. There was 756 as of Tuesday.

There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks.

As of today, 87.6 per cent of eligible people five and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 82.7 per cent have had two jabs. Sixteen per cent (764,498) have had three doses.

From Dec. 14–20, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 28.3 per cent of cases. From Dec. 7–20, they accounted for 70.5 per cent of hospitalizations.