B.C. health officials say the number of COVID-19 cases in the province rose by 139 on Friday and there were three more deaths.
The COVID-19 death toll in B.C. is now 223.
No new cases were reported in Island Health over the last 24 hours. The health authority has had 196 cases since the start of the pandemic. There are nine active cases in Island Health: six on southern Vancouver Island and three on central Vancouver Island.
Island Health’s COVID-19 numbers on Sept. 18. (Island Health)
Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, and Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, released Friday’s numbers in a statement.
“We need to push the COVID-19 curve back down and we have the knowledge, the tools and resources to do just that. Always using your layers of protection and choosing to stick with your ‘safe six’ will help all of us this weekend and every weekend ahead,” Henry and Dix said in Friday’s statement.
“The cases we are seeing today are a direct result of how we spent our Labour Day long weekend. Let’s break the chain of transmission and turn this trend around.”
Of the 139 new cases, seven are epidemiologically-linked, people who were never tested but were presumed to have COVID-19 because they developed symptoms and were close contacts of a laboratory-confirmed case.
Dix and Henry also reported 40 historic cases that were tested between Aug. 11 and Sept. 16 for people who did not have personal health numbers. All those cases have been previously investigated and managed by Vancouver Coastal Health, but had not been entered into the data system.
B.C. has now had a total of 7,842 cases since the start of the pandemic.
There are 1,803 active cases of COVID-19 in the province (an increase of 98 from Sept. 17 and a record high), 3,075 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases (an increase of 126 from Sept. 17) and 5,797 people who tested positive have recovered.
Fifty-nine people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (an increase of two from Sept. 17), 20 of whom are in intensive care (a decrease of two from Sept. 17).
There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks and the outbreak at Royal Arch Masonic Home long-term care facility (its second outbreak) has been declared over. In total, 10 long-term care or assisted-living facilities and five acute-care facilities have active outbreaks.
They are:
- OPAL by Element assisted-living facility in Vancouver Coastal Health
- Point Grey Private Hospital long-term care facility in Vancouver Coastal Health
- Bear Creek Villa independent-living facility in Fraser Health
- Cherington Place long-term care facility in Fraser Health
- Evergreen Hamlets long-term care facility in Fraser Health
- Kin Village assisted-living facility in Fraser Health
- Milieu Children and Family Services Society community-living facility in Fraser Health
- New Vista Care Home long-term care facility in Fraser Health
- Normanna long-term care facility in Fraser Health
- Rideau Retirement Centre independent-living facility in Fraser Health
There are also no new community outbreaks.
“No one intends to pass the virus onto friends or family, but it is very easy to do. It can take up to two weeks for symptoms of COVID-19 to develop and in that time, we can inadvertently spread it to others,” Dix and Henry said.
“That is why the actions we take as individuals today are so important to the well-being of our communities tomorrow. Let’s choose safe, let’s choose small and let’s choose to protect the people we care about most.”
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.
B.C. has posted detailed information about the geographic distribution of COVID-19 cases from January to July 2020. This map will be continually updated, according to B.C. health officials.
Geographic distribution of COVID-19 cases in B.C. from January to July 2020. (Province of BC)
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.
To see B.C.’s COVID-19 numbers by day and health authority, along with testing numbers and recoveries, visit the B.C. COVID-19 dashboard. The numbers are updated at 4:30 p.m. PT each weekday.
To see a list of all provincial public COVID-19 exposures in the province, including links to exposures listed on health authority websites, visit the B.C. Centre for Disease Control website (CDC) here.
The latest numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 3:59 p.m. PDT on Sept. 18, 2020:
There are 141,911 confirmed cases in Canada (0 presumptive, 141,911 confirmed including 9,205 deaths, 123,720 resolved)
- Quebec: 66,653 confirmed (including 5,792 deaths, 58,218 resolved)
- Ontario: 46,077 confirmed (including 2,825 deaths, 40,600 resolved)
- Alberta: 16,381 confirmed (including 255 deaths, 14,702 resolved)
- British Columbia: 7,842 confirmed (including 223 deaths, 5,797 resolved)
- Saskatchewan: 1,776 confirmed (including 24 deaths, 1,639 resolved)
- Manitoba: 1,540 confirmed (including 16 deaths, 1,199 resolved)
- Nova Scotia: 1,086 confirmed (including 65 deaths, 1,020 resolved)
- Newfoundland and Labrador: 272 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 267 resolved)
- New Brunswick: 194 confirmed (including 2 deaths, 189 resolved)
- Prince Edward Island: 57 confirmed (including 56 resolved)
- Yukon: 15 confirmed (including 15 resolved)
- Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)
- Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved)
- Nunavut: No confirmed cases
According to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Medicine, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide is more than 30.3 million. More than 948,000 deaths have been reported.
Alexa Huffman
