Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, and Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, today (Nov. 24) issued the following joint statement regarding updates on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) response in British Columbia.

Today, we are reporting on three 24-hour periods. From Nov. 20 to 21, we had 713 new cases. From Nov. 21 to 22 we had 626 new cases and in the last 24 hours, we have had a further 594 new cases.

This represents 1,933 new cases of COVID-19, including 11 epi-linked cases, for a total of 27,407 cases in British Columbia.

There are 7,360 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 277 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 58 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

Currently, 10,200 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and 19,069 people who tested positive have recovered.

Since we last reported, we have had 414 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 1,304 in the Fraser Health region, 48 in the Island Health region, 104 in the Interior Health region, 61 in the Northern Health region and two new cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

There have been 17 new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 348 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have six new health-care facility outbreaks at North Peace Seniors Housing Society, Queen’s Park CareLife Fleetwood, Sunset Manor, Renfrew Care Centre and Lions Gate Hospital. The outbreaks at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, The Harrison at Elim Village, Dania Home, Suncreek Village and the Evergreen Baptist Care Society are over. There have been no new community outbreaks.

We’re in a very challenging time of the COVID-19 pandemic and we are asking for everyone’s help to slow the spread of the virus in our province.

As we have seen, this virus doesn’t pause when we are tired and doesn’t wait for us to catch up.

This means that right now, we all need slow down our social interactions and increase our layers of protection to get over this next hurdle together. Over the next two weeks, we need to reduce the level of transmission in our province to relieve the stress on our health-care system and keep our schools and workplaces open.

It is about putting our social gatherings with anyone outside of our immediate household on hold and only doing those things that are essential and safe right now.

We’re asking you to put the safety measures at the top of your list and focus on making a difference, rather than thinking about shortcuts or workarounds.

We recognize you may have questions and we have provided further details of how the orders apply to our homes, workplaces and businesses, and where the exceptions may be. This information is available at: www.gov.bc.ca/covid19

Let’s remember that by focusing on today and doing what we can to make a difference, we will see this pandemic through.

Lead image: Panic shoppers appear to have returned with the second wave of COVID-19 as the aisle containing toilet paper in Cranbrook’s SuperStore has once again been denuded of supplies. Carrie Schafer/e-KNOW photo

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