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BC announces 366 new cases of COVID-19, 4 new deaths

366 new cases, 4 deaths

UPDATE: 4:30 p.m.

The 16 new cases of COVID-19 announced Monday brings the Interior's total since the start of the pandemic to 508.

There are currently 34 active cases in the region, all of whom are in isolation. One person is in hospital.

There are no IH cases currently associated with the Teck Coal Mines outbreak, declared Aug. 27.


ORIGINAL: 3:20 p.m.

Another 366 new cases of COVID-19 in British Columbia were announced over the past three days, 16 of which came from the Interior Health region.

This includes 121 new cases identified from Friday to Saturday, 117 from Saturday to Sunday and 128 in the past 24 hours.

Interior's total jumped from 492 to 508 over the weekend, and the total number of positive cases in the province since the beginning of the pandemic now stands at 8,208.

There are currently 1,987 active cases in B.C. - the highest number of active cases the province has ever had - and a further 3,233 are self-isolating as a result of exposure to a known case.

Hospitalizations rose to 60 across the province, including 21 who are in critical care. There are 5,972 people who have fully recovered form the virus. 

Over the past three days, there were four new deaths recorded as a result of the virus, bringing the total number of deaths since the pandemic began to 227.

Two were from the Vancouver Coastal Health region, one from within the Fraser Health region and an additional death in the Northern Health region. 

One new healthcare outbreak was declared over the weekend at Yaletown House, a long-term care facility in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, where one staff member has tested positive for COVID-19. 

The healthcare outbreak at Queens Park Care Centre in the Fraser Valley region has been declared over, reducing the number of active healthcare outbreaks in the province to 15. 

Twelve of these are in long-term assisted living and three are in acute care facilities.

There have been no new community outbreaks but exposure events continue to occur, and the public are encouraged to check healthcare websites regularly to stay informed. 

A number of exposures have occurred in a number of different school settings, but are low-risk, says provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.

She thanked teachers and school staff who have gone to great lengths to protect children in these environments.

"It's been challenging, I know, but the innovation and imagination that has been shown has been tremendous.

"We have had no clusters, no transmission events in schools and no outbreaks at this point, and we must continue to stress the layers of prevention that we have in place in our school system to make sure that children and teachers and staff can get back to school safely."

Dr. Henry also confirmed she will not allow Monday's announcement of a fall election scheduled for Oct. 24 to have a negative impact on the province's COVID-19 response.

"I would like to assure you the B.C. COVID-19 response will continue uninterrupted, and it is my priority ... we've been working with Elections BC since March when there was municipal elections planned for later that month. and we have been working with them continuously since that time, recognizing that there was potential for elections as this pandemic progressed - both municipal, provincial and federal.

"The guidelines we've come up with include how political parties and their candidates need to keep themselves, their staff and volunteers and their communities safe during the campaign. We've also outlined how elections processes need to occur to ensure that everybody in the province remains safe and these can be handled safely."

Dr. Henry is expected to brief the public on specific details of election plans on Tuesday, joined by the Chief Electoral Officer. 



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