B.C. has set a grim new record, topping more than 200 new COVID-19 cases in a single day.
On Wednesday, officials reported 203 new cases of the virus and two new deaths, both in long-term care.
It was the sixth consecutive day that the province reported more than 150 new cases of the disease.
There are now 12,057 total cases in B.C., including 1,766 active cases, 9,993 recovered cases and 4,294 people in isolation.
The province’s death toll from COVID-19 stands at 256 people.
Seventy people remain in hospital, which is up one from Tuesday. Twenty-one of them were in intensive or critical case, up three since Tuesday.
As this chart shows, it only took six days for B.C. to jump from 11,000 to 12,000 cases.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 4,215 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 6,517 in the Fraser Health region, 244 in the Island Health region, 632 in the Interior Health region, 361 in the Northern Health region and 88 cases of people who live outside of Canada, the province confirmed Wednesday.
During her last live update, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Monday that B.C. is experiencing a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the province is still underrepresented among the numbers of new cases across Canada.
“One can say that we are in our second wave here of our COVID-19 storm in B.C., but we have control over what that wave looks like.”
There have been three new health-care facility outbreaks at Three Links Care Centre, Fort Langley Seniors Community and Baillie House. The outbreaks at Harrison West at Elim Village and White Rock Seniors Village have been declared over. In total, 18 long-term care or assisted-living facilities and two acute-care facilities have active outbreaks.
There has been one new outbreak at École de l’Anse-au-sable school in Kelowna with three members of the school community confirmed positive for COVID-19. As a result, about 160 members of the school have been asked to self-isolate for 14 days and to monitor for symptoms.
The province warned Wednesday that many of these new cases have been linked to weddings, funerals and celebrations of life. They are urging everyone to keep these gatherings small and to plan for bigger events when it is safe to do so.