B.C. reports 445 new cases of COVID-19 and 10 deaths, new variant detected

British Columbia heath officials reported 445 new cases of COVID-19 and 10 additional deaths in their final update of the week.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said B.C. had also detected the first case of a new variant of the virus, dubbed B1.525 and associated with travel to Nigeria.

“We aren’t entirely clear yet whether this variant also has increased transmissibility or causes more severe illness, but our lab team is working with their counterparts in Canada and internationally to get a better understanding,” Henry said.

The update left the province with 4,347 active cases of the virus, Henry said. An additional 7,035 people were isolating due to potential exposure.

3:59 B.C. health officials detect first case of Nigerian variant in the province

Of the new cases, 135 were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 218 were in the Fraser Health region, 15 were on Vancouver Island, 44 were in the Interior Health region and 30 were in the Northern Health region.

There were 226 people in hospital, an overnight increase of two, 61 of whom were in critical or intensive care.

About 92 per cent of B.C.’s total 72,750 cases have recovered, while 1,288 people have died.

Variant concerns

The single case of the new B1.525 variant detected so far was in a young person in Interior Health who had travelled to Nigeria, Henry said. The patient was isolating and there was no known transmission, she added.

It is on top of 46 other variant cases detected so far. Twenty-nine of those are the B.1.1.7 variant, first detected in the U.K., and 17 are the B.1.315 variant first detected in South Africa, Henry said.

The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control has been doing ongoing screening for the new variants, she said, including a “point prevalence assessment,” in which every new positive COVID-19 case detected between Jan. 30 and Feb. 5 was tested for variance.

“Of 3,099 positive cases that were screened, there were three that were confirmed,” Henry said.

“This is reassuring. It tells us that we don’t have  high levels of transmission in our communities, but it tells us we still need to be cautious and to monitor.”

All but one of the U.K. variant cases had travelled or were a close contact of someone who had travelled or a known case, Henry said.

The majority of the South African variant cases were part of a cluster or related to travel, she said, but at least two were still under investigation due to unknown origin.

23:51 Focus BC: Vaccinations, variants and COVID-19 outbreaks

Positive vaccine news

British Columbia can expect to see a significant boost in size of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shipments, starting next week, Henry said.

So far, the province has administered 162,982 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, 17,562 of which were second doses.

“We expect to have a significant bump of supply in the coming weeks. This will allow us to fully resume our province-wide immunization program,” she said.

“Very soon we’ll be able to expand into the community groups, particularly our seniors and elders.”

Health Minister Adrian Dix said the province was expecting about 55,000 doses next week.

Henry added that as vaccines have been rolled out, there has been a significant decrease in new cases and transmission in long-term care and assisted living facilities.

Earlier Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had recently spoken with the CEO of Pfizer, who assured him Canada would still get its promised four million doses of COVID-19 vaccine by the end of March.

Trudeau said he had also been assured that after March, the next batch of vaccines would be accelerated and arrive in Canada “sooner” than previously projected.