British Columbia’s troubling upward trend in new coronavirus cases continued Friday, with officials reporting 84 more cases of the virus.
It came after the province reported 78 new cases on Thursday and 85 new cases on Wednesday, and pushed the number of active cases in the province to 626.
All but two of the new cases were in the Lower Mainland: 48 were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and 34 were in the Fraser Health region.
Following a string of recent exposures in the Lower Mainland, at private parties, night clubs, restaurants and retail stores, the number of British Columbians under “active public health monitoring” climbed to 2,026.
Fraser Health announced two new potential exposures Friday, one at the Taphouse Coquitlam on Aug. 1-2, and one at Charlie Hamilton’s Pub in Coquitlam on Aug. 4 between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
There were no new deaths Friday, leaving B.C.’s death toll at 196.
The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital climbed by three to 12, while four people remained in critical care.
Health officials said there was one new health-care outbreak at New Westminster’s Queen’s Park Care Centre, involving one person.
In total, B.C. has now reported 4,358 cases of coronavirus, 3,533 of which have recovered.