B.C. health officials on Monday reported 1,120 new cases of COVID-19 over three days and six new deaths.
There were 352 cases from Friday to Saturday, 389 cases from Saturday to Sunday, and 379 from Sunday to Monday, the three highest one-day case totals on record in B.C.
Of the new cases, 830 were in the Fraser Health region and 234 were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region.
“The COVID-19 tide is rising. You can see that in the numbers,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said.
“It is powerful but we can be stronger and we will be stronger.”
The number of active cases in the province rose to 2,945.
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 increased by 12 to 90. Nineteen patients are in intensive care, a decrease of six from Friday.
More than 6,400 people are in isolation due to possible exposure to the novel coronavirus.
The numbers come after large crowds celebrated Halloween in the streets of downtown Vancouver on Saturday, despite multiple pleas from health officials to keep all gatherings small.
“Our desire to be together, our desire to party together, can sometimes be our greatest weakness,” Dix said.
“We must seal the cracks and close the gap that COVID-19 exploits to make us sick and to claim lives.”
He called the crowds on the Granville strip “disgraceful” and a source of frustration for the vast majority of British Columbians who follow public health guidelines.
The scenes in downtown Vancouver may draw our attention, he added, but it’s important to focus on smaller indoor gatherings that can slip under the radar.
“Some of those events, which have seen a lot of transmission … have occurred not with cameras around and not in a way we can visualize, but indoors, in private gatherings — sometimes relatively small gatherings.”
On Friday, B.C. added another 272 cases of COVID-19 to its total, while the number of people isolating due to possible exposure topped 6,000 for the first time.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry also granted new powers to regional medical health officers to issue stricter orders for their own jurisdictions.
B.C. has also limited the size of gatherings in private homes to no more than your immediate household plus your “safe six,” which refers to six additional people in your household’s bubble, and not six additional people per person living in your house.
— With files from Simon Little