British Columbia is reporting 395 new cases of COVID-19 for the entire province with ten additional deaths in that span.
Of the 395 new cases, 37 are linked to the Island Health region.
This marks the fourth straight day that health officials have reported over 30 cases in the Island Health region.
Dating back to last Friday, Island Health has reported 210 new cases of COVID-19.
With reported cases climbing over 600, today marked the highest single-day number since January 7 when health officials announced 761 new cases.
There are currently 4,489 active cases in British Columbia, while 7,931 residents remain under active public health monitoring.
Dr. Bonnie Henry says that 228 are in hospital – a decrease of 9 since Feb. 25 – with 62 people in critical care as a result of the virus (a decrease of two).
Since Wednesday’s numbers, there have been 86 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 207 in the Fraser Health region, 37 in the Island Health region, 24 in the Interior Health region, 41 in the Northern Health region and zero new cases of people who reside outside of Canada.
READ MORE: More than 30 new cases of COVID-19 identified on Vancouver Island
There were ten additional deaths related to the virus on Thursday. This brings the provincial death total over the course of the pandemic to 1,348.
Also as of Thursday, the total number of cases in British Columbia over the course of the pandemic has reached 78,673.
There are currently 13 active outbreaks in long-term care and assisted living facilities and five outbreaks in acute care facilities.
Health officials also said, to date, 239,833 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the province, 68,157 of which are second doses.
“We have seen that the vaccines we have available today are doing their job,” said Dr. Bonnie Henry during a press conference on Thursday.
“We know there are many people in B.C. who are eager to get vaccinated as soon as possible and right across Canada, I can’t stress enough, how much we are working together,” the Provincial Health Officer added.
Variants
Dr. Henry noted there have been 16 new cases of COVID-19 variants reported in British Columbia since the previous announcement.
That brings the total number of variant cases to 116, according to health officials. Dr. Henry notes, however, of this total number of variant cases, only nine are active.
Breaking these cases down, Dr. Henry says there have been 95 cases of the B117 variant (associated with the U.K.) and 21 cases of the B131 variant (associated with South Africa).
There are also two cases of the variant associated with Nigeria, currently under investigation.
Only four of these COVID-19 variant cases have been connected with Island Health.
Dr. Henry says that health officials are currently unclear where individuals transmitted the virus for about one-quarter of the variant cases.
Island Health
Island Health has yet to release a breakdown of active cases on Vancouver Island for Feb. 25.
More COVID-19 information
If there is a confirmed COVID-19 case in a school, public health contacts affected school community members directly. Regional health authorities also post-school notifications on their websites, providing the date and type of notification (outbreak, cluster or exposure) for impacted schools.
The Island Health school site can be found here.
Provincial mental health and anxiety support can be found at www.bouncebackbc.ca
Island Health’s COVID-19 data breaks down North, Central and South Island case counts and lists the number of days since any new lab-diagnosed cases. You can find the data here along with any public exposures.
According to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Medicine, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide is more than 112.8 million. More than 2.5 million deaths have been recorded.
Graham Cox
