There have been 1,120 new cases of COVID-19 in B.C. in the past 72 hours, along with six more deaths.
On Friday, B.C. recorded 352 new cases. On Saturday, there were 389 new cases. On Sunday, there were 379 new cases — all daily highs for the province. The weekend total is also a record for B.C.
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The six deaths were among five people in Vancouver Coastal Health and one person in Fraser Health, all of whom were residents in long-term care homes.
Deputy Provincial Health Officer Dr. Réka Gustafson said the latest numbers are concerning, but noted in the months since the pandemic began, it’s known what is needed to stay safe — testing and contact tracing being the two main tools.
Of the 1,120 new cases, 830 are in Fraser Health, 234 are in Vancouver Coastal Health, 36 are in Interior Health, 10 are in Northern Health and nine are in Island Health.
There are 2,945 active cases of COVID-19 — which is also a record — of whom 90 are in hospital. Of those 90 people, 19 are in intensive care. While there are 93 active COVID-19 cases in Interior Health, there are no hospitalizations.
There are 6,448 people in B.C. being monitored for COVID-19.
Since the pandemic began, there have been 15,501 cases of COVID-19 in the province, 777 of which have been in Interior Health. In the Kamloops Health Service Area, which includes outlying areas of Logan Lake, Savona, Little Fort, Barriere, Anglemont, Chase and Westwold, there have been 82 cases to the end of September.
There have been three new outbreaks in long-term care facilities in B.C., increasing active outbreaks to 28. There are no new community outbreaks to report from the weekend.
Gustafson advised that as the weather continues to get colder and people spend more time indoors, there will be surges in cases, so it’s important to keep groups small.
She advised to work with contact tracers and said all older individuals and otherwise vulnerable people should avoid crowds and limit the number of social contacts.
Asked about the risk of contracting COVID-19 on transit, Gustafson said it isn’t a major source of transmission, noting there are good safety protocols in place for BC Transit, which has a face mask mandate.
She said contact tracers look into where a person with COVID-19 has been in the past two weeks and most people have been able top pinpoint where they were infected.
Gustafson added that most infections are occurring in private residences where there may not be COVID-19 protocols in place. She said businesses and voting places have not been major sources of virus spread.
Asked why the health ministry is not providing more detailed information of where cases are occurring in specific health regions, Gustafson said government is “working hard to provide more and more granular information.
“COVID-19 is transmitted in known chains of transmission and outbreaks and the more information you have about your community, the more empowered you are to take precautions as needed,” Gustafson said.
To date, the government has only been specifying new cases by health authority, citing privacy concerns. More recently, case counts by health region within health authorities have been made available. but those numbers are only updated monthly.
Asked why B.C. has not adopted the federal government’s COVID-19 app, Gustafson said officials have reviewed the app with contact tracers and it was deemed to not have additional value to the existing contact tracing in place in the province.
She said the app, in its current state, can inform someone he or she was exposed to COVID-19, but is not able to tell people when that contact occurred, how intense the exposure was or what to do about it. She said people need more details about said exposure to know whether there is a risk of contracting the novel coronavirus.
Gustafson said there are basic steps, such as monitoring one’s health and isolating when sick, people need to take regardless of whether they’ve been exposed.
