Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, and Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, today (Feb. 8) issued the following joint statement regarding updates on the COVID-19 response in British Columbia.

Today, we are reporting on three periods. From Feb. 5 to 6, we had 428 new cases. From Feb. 6 to 7, we had 465 new cases and in the last 24-hours, we had a further 343 new cases.

This results in a total of 1,236 new cases, including five epi-linked cases, for a total of 70,952 cases in British Columbia.

There are 3,976 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 234 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 69 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

Currently, 6,923 people are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and a further 65,605 people who tested positive have recovered.

Since we last reported, we have had 266 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 601 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 86 in the Island Health region, 152 in the Interior Health region, 131 in the Northern Health region and no new cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

To date, 154,496 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 12,111 of which are second doses. Immunization data is available on the COVID-19 dashboard at: www.bccdc.ca

There have been 13 new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 1,259 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost loved ones to COVID-19.

We have two new health-care facility outbreaks at Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Dawson Creek and District Hospital. The outbreaks at Evergreen Baptist Care Society, Hilltop House, The Madison Care Centre, Suncreek Village, St. Michael’s Centre, Mount St. Joseph’s Hospital, Nanaimo Regional General Hospital and Surrey Memorial Hospital are now over.

Every day, we are closely monitoring our progress in the COVID-19 pandemic so we can ease restrictions as soon as it is safe to do so. We want to have the confidence so as we open up more, we will not have to step back again. Fewer cases, outbreaks or unchecked transmission in our community are the pieces we need to have in place.

Our focus right now is to clear our path of any hurdles, so we can ease restrictions that much faster.

We are watching closely for the further spread of the variants of concern. With each day we stop transmission of the virus – no matter what the variant – we are buying time to get our immunization program back on track and giving ourselves the protective buffer we need.

We thank everyone, especially our restaurant sector and customers, for doing their part this weekend to help us continue to flatten our curve. The choices we make today, as well as the plans we make for tomorrow, make a difference.

By avoiding travel now, we will have much more to enjoy and many more places to visit in the weeks ahead.

Let’s continue to push our curve down by staying small, staying local and using our layers of protection. This will ensure we have the protection we need when we once again see our friends, hugs our grandparents and enjoy all that is spectacular in our province.

Lead image: A Tamarack Centre store employee controls the number of people allowed inside. Carrie Schafer/e-KNOW photo

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