New daily record for Covid cases in B.C.
B.C. has set another new high for Covid-19 cases in one day.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer, announced 165 new cases on Thursday, bringing the provincial total to 7,663 since the pandemic started.
Four of the new cases are in Interior Health which has 23 active cases and one person in hospital.
There are now 1,705 active cases in B.C., with 57 people in hospital, and 22 in intensive or critical care.
There has been one more Covid-related death, who Henry said was a man in long term care in the Vancouver Coastal health region, for a provincial death toll of 220.
Another 2,949 people are under active health monitoring due to exposure to known cases.
There has been two new health care outbreaks: at Delta hospital and at the rehab unit at Peace Arch Hospital, with no new community outbreaks
Dr. Henry said if there are any outbreaks at schools, public health teams will contact families as part of contact tracing if self isolation or monitoring is needed.
“We have no outbreaks in our schools,” said Henry. “We have had some students and staff who have been in school settings at a time when they may have been infectious to others, but none of these were high risk and everyone has been notified who needs to monitor for symptoms.”
Henry said schools will post any cases in schools on the BCCDC website.
Interior Health has also set up a page on school exposures in its coverage area. Click here for that.
B.C. is introducing a new saline gargle test for students from kindergarten to grade 12 to help make it easier to find out if they have COVID-19.
Dr. Henry said B.C. is one of the first places in the world to use that type of test for the virus.
Case counts by health region:
- 2,714 Vancouver Coastal
- 3,937 Fraser
- 196 Island
- 489 Interior
- 241 Northern
- 86 people who reside outside Canada