There is some good news for British Columbians to start the new year — the number of active cases of COVID-19 has declined.
There were concerns that if people ignored provincial health orders and held Christmas get-togethers then B.C. would see a surge in cases.
However, so far, that has not happened.
B.C. health officials on Monday reported 2,211 new cases of COVID-19 over the past four days and 45 additional deaths.
There are currently 6,823 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, a decrease of nearly 1,000 from Thursday.
However, officials are warning that they won’t know if there will be a surge in cases again relating to new year’s events.
“I want to thank and commend many, many people, the most of us and British Columbia, who put their usual holiday traditions and celebrations aside and followed public health orders to help protect our families, our communities and each other from COVID-19,” B.C.’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said Monday.
“Despite these efforts, we know some people chose to bend the rules and we continue to have transmission in our communities. And because we know there’s a delay between when those exposures happen and when people become sick, we know that we can start to see increased numbers of cases.”
Henry announced the latest case numbers while offering more details about B.C.’s immunization program, which is currently focused on health-care staff, remote communities and residents of long-term care homes.
She said B.C. has so far received 54,625 doses of the two vaccines approved by Health Canada, with more doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arriving in the province weekly.
—with files from Jon Azpiri
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