Ninety-one new cases of COVID-19 were reported in B.C. on Wednesday, with no new confirmed cases in the Island Health region for a second day.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, and Stephen Brown, deputy minister of health, released Wednesday’s numbers in a statement.
Five of the new cases are epidemiologically-linked, meaning 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.
B.C. has now had a total of 8,395 cases since the start of the pandemic.
No new deaths from COVID-19 were reported on Wednesday. The B.C. COVID-19 death toll remains at 227.
Island Health
Island Health has eight active cases as of Sept. 23: one on southern Vancouver Island, four on central Vancouver Island and three on northern Vancouver Island. There was no change in active cases compared to the day before.
There are currently no COVID-19 hospitalizations in the health authority.
The health authority has recorded 203 cases of COVID-19 and five deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Island Health’s COVID-19 numbers as of Sept. 23, 2020. (Island Health)
READ MORE: Technical issue leads to backlog of calls to Island Health COVID-19 testing line
B.C. cases
There are 1,376 active cases of COVID-19 in the province (89 fewer than Sept. 22), 3,368 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases (54 more than Sept. 22) and 6,769 people who tested positive have recovered.
Sixty-two people are hospitalized with COVID-19 (one more than Sept. 22), 18 of whom are in intensive care (four fewer than Sept. 22).
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 3,016 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 4,302 in the Fraser Health region, 203 in the Island Health region, 515 in the Interior Health region, 273 in the Northern Health region and 86 cases of people who reside outside of Canada.
There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks, and outbreaks at Bear Creek Villa independent-living facility and Normanna long-term care facility have been declared over. In total, nine 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
- Yaletown House long-term care facility in Vancouver Coastal 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
- Rideau Retirement Centre independent-living facility in Fraser Health
There have been no new community outbreaks. The outbreak at the Loblaws warehouse in Surrey has been declared over.
“New cases and clusters of COVID-19 remain higher than where we would like them to be,” Henry and Brown said in Wednesday’s statement.
“The impact of this means that thousands of people in B.C. are now under active public health monitoring and care, with many forced to deal with the stress and anxiety that comes with having to self-isolate away from work, friends and family.
“Each of us has the ability to make a difference by continuing to follow the COVID-19 safety basics: washing our hands frequently, giving the space to stay safe and using a mask when that is difficult, limiting our social interactions and always staying home when ill.
“By using the layers of protection, we reduce our personal risks and the number of new cases, and we make our communities safer.
“We want to ensure we are in the best position possible to protect our communities and keep as much as is safe open and operating during the pandemic. To do this, we need everyone to do their part today to help push our curve back down tomorrow.”
A dramatic tripling of daily new cases of COVID-19 in the past month, mostly among young people, prompted warnings on Wednesday that Canada is staring at a major second wave of the pandemic and the federal government said short-term lockdowns might be needed.
Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, said the country had seen an average of more than 1,100 new cases of the novel coronavirus a day this past week compared with about 380 a day in mid-August.
“Canada is at a crossroads with the COVID-19 epidemic trajectory,” Tam said. “Unless public health and individual protective measures are strengthened and we work together to slow the spread of the virus, the situation is on track for a big resurgence in a number of provinces.”
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. Island Health has not posted any school exposures as of Wednesday, Sept. 23.
B.C. has posted detailed information about the geographic distribution of COVID-19 cases from January to August 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 August 2020 (BC CDC)
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 3:57 p.m. PDT on Sept. 23, 2020:
There are 147,753 confirmed cases in Canada (0 presumptive, 147,753 confirmed including 9,243 deaths, 127,787 resolved)
- Quebec: 69,088 confirmed (including 5,809 deaths, 59,686 resolved)
- Ontario: 48,087 confirmed (including 2,835 deaths, 41,600 resolved)
- Alberta: 17,032 confirmed (including 260 deaths, 15,252 resolved)
- British Columbia: 8,395 confirmed (including 227 deaths, 6,769 resolved)
- Saskatchewan: 1,830 confirmed (including 24 deaths, 1,673 resolved)
- Manitoba: 1,674 confirmed (including 18 deaths, 1,238 resolved)
- Nova Scotia: 1,087 confirmed (including 65 deaths, 1,021 resolved)
- Newfoundland and Labrador: 272 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 267 resolved)
- New Brunswick: 197 confirmed (including 2 deaths, 191 resolved)
- Prince Edward Island: 58 confirmed (including 57 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 31.7 million. There have been more than 973,000 COVID-19 deaths reported globally.
Alexa Huffman
