No new positive cases of COVID-19 in Interior Health reported in past 48 hours: health official

Interior Health is the only health authority in B.C. to record no new test positive cases of COVID-19 in the past 48 hours, according to numbers released by the provincial health officer Monday.

There are 128 positive cases of the novel coronavirus in the B.C. Interior as of Monday, no change since Saturday.

Of those cases, 13 people have been hospitalized in the Interior Health region due to COVID-19.

B.C.’s health minister Adrian Dix says 58.8 per cent of beds are available in acute care hospitals, and the occupancy rate in critical care units is 53.3 per cent.

Province-wide, there are 63 new cases of COVID-19 across B.C. over the past two days, bringing the total to 1,266 people who have tested positive for the disease in B.C.

There are 586 cases in Vancouver Coastal Health (+32), 450 in Fraser Health (+26), 79 in Island Health (+3) and 23 in Northern Health (+2).

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Of the total number of cases in B.C., nearly 62 per cent of people who contracted the disease have fully recovered.

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One new death was announced on Monday, a man in his 40’s who died of COVID-19 at home.

Dr. Bonnie Henry noted some positive news at her daily press briefing on Monday.

“The percentage of new cases has been slowing, it’s been bending, and that is really important and it’s testament to the effort that everybody here in British Columbia has been making over these past few weeks, but we must keep that firewall strong,” she said.

Dr. Henry urged British Columbians to not let their guard down and to continue practicing physical distancing.

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“This is in the middle of our critical weeks for COVID-19 and we must be steadfast in our commitment to holding the line right now in B.C.”

Not everyone who is sick is being tested for COVID-19.

The BC Centre for Disease Control’s testing guidelines limits testing to people with symptoms who are hospitalized, residents of long term care facilities, those who are part of an investigation of a cluster or outbreak and health-care workers.

Interior Health is operating 14 referral-only COVID-19 screening clinics and testing is done by appointment only.

For more information on testing in Interior Health, click here. 

You can visit the symptom self-assessment tool (available online or as a mobile app) for help determining if you might need further assessment or testing for COVID-19.