COVID-19 cases rise in Okanagan, Kootenays; down in Thompson region

Photo: BC CDC

New COVID-19 cases by region, identified between Nov. 6 and 19.

Close to a third of all of British Columbia's COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic have come in the past two weeks, and case counts continue to rise across the southern Interior.

New data released by the BC Centre for Disease Control shows 7,808 new cases have been identified in B.C. between Nov. 6 and 19 — 31 per cent of all of the province's cases. Okanagan residents accounted for 225 new cases in that time period.

New case counts have consistently risen in the Okanagan over the past month. Last week, the number of new cases from the prior two-week period, from Oct. 30 to Nov. 12, was 144, and the two-week period before that saw 90 new cases in the Okanagan.

Back in July, when the Okanagan was the hardest hit region in the province after several downtown Kelowna exposures, there were just 107 new cases identified in the two-week period between July 10 and 25.

While Interior cases have largely been centralized in the Okanagan throughout the pandemic, cases have begun to rise in the east. Over the past two weeks, 27 new cases were identified in the Kootenay Boundary region, while 22 were identified in the Kootenay East region. Thursday, Interior Health announced 23 cases had been connected to a cluster in Salmo, which is in the Kootenay Boundary region.

But the Thompson Cariboo Shuswap region, which includes Kamloops, Merritt, Revelstoke and Williams Lake, is the only health services delivery area in the province that has actually seen new case counts drop this week, compared to last week's reporting. There have been 34 new cases in the area in the past two weeks, compared to 40 new cases between Oct. 30 and Nov. 12.

The Lower Mainland, particularly the Fraser South region, continues to account for the vast majority of the province's new cases. The Fraser South region, which includes Surrey, Langley and Delta, saw 3,550 new cases in the past week, while the Fraser North had 1,140 and Vancouver had 966.

In Richmond, which has consistently maintained lower numbers than its surrounding areas, the new cases in the past two weeks more than tripled compared to the two-period prior, with 255 new cases.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced new orders Thursday that prohibit all social gatherings of any size outside of one's household contacts and mandates the use of masks in indoor public and retail spaces.