With Christmas now two weeks in the rearview mirror, British Columbia appears to be seeing a feared spike in new COVID-19 cases.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reported 761 new cases of the virus Thursday, along with eight more deaths bringing B.C.’s death toll to 970.
All of the fatalities were in long-term care.
Thursday’s reported case count was the highest one-day total of new cases since Dec. 13.
However, Henry said a part of the jump was due to a change in the way the province was reporting data — shifting from the date cases are reported to health authorities to the date their lab result is confirmed.
“There also is a slight increase that we’ve seen in case counts today, and for a few days, as the new system kicks in and the previous lag we used to have from positive result to reported case is eliminated,” she said.
The vast majority of the new cases, 484, were in the Fraser Health region — with the one-day total for the health authority eclipsing case totals seen for the entire province on several days in recent weeks.
There were also more cases in the Interior Health region (96) than the Vancouver Coastal Health region (94).
Twenty-three cases were on Vancouver Island, while 64 were in the Northern Health region.
Henry also confirmed two new cases of the more contagious U.K. variant of COVID-19, first detected in B.C. on Dec. 27.
The new cases were household contacts of the original case, and all three people were isolating, Henry said.
“There are no other contacts, and we do not believe anyone else is at risk of this variant,” she said.
There were 6,349 active cases in the province, along with at least 8,849 people isolating due to possible exposure. That figure did not include the Northern Health region.
The province has now provided at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to 41,064 people.
Henry reported 372 people in hospital, 74 of whom were in critical or intensive care.
About 84 per cent of B.C.’s 56,015 total cases have recovered.
More to come…