New COVID-19 cases in British Columbia remain high as another 716 cases of the virus were identified in the past 24 hours, including 38 in the Interior.
The new cases bring the total positive tests since the beginning of the pandemic to 93,969, and there remains 5,573 active cases. Active cases have been steadily increasing in recent days, and jumped by 164 since Tuesday.
There are now 303 people hospitalized with the disease – down by 11 since Tuesday – 85 of whom are being treated in ICU.
There are 343 active cases of the virus in the Interior. Of these, 16 people are hospitalized, six of whom are in ICU. To date, 114 Interior residents have died from the disease.
Another 9,696 people across the province are self-isolating after coming into contact with a COVID-positive person.
Three more British Columbians have died from COVID-19, bringing the total deaths in the province to 1,441.
There were 25,126 doses of the COVID vaccine administered in the last day, for a total of 582,634 doses – 87,180 of which are second doses.
There have been 71 new variants of concern cases identified, for a total of 1,581 to date. These include 1,397 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant, 44 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant and 140 cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant.
There remains 148 active variant of concern cases.
Beginning Monday, people deemed clinically extremely vulnerable will be able to start booking vaccine appointments.
