British Columbia reported another seven COVID-19 deaths and 862 new cases on Wednesday.
The numbers, released in a written statement, showed the province’s seven-day average for new cases continuing to trend downward, falling to 983 from a peak of 1,130 on April 12.
Active cases also continued to fall, dropping to 8,906 Wednesday — down from a peak of 10,081 on April 16. An additional 13,135 people were isolating due to possible exposure to the novel coronavirus.
But the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital continued its worrying upward climb.
Officials reported 483 people in hospital, 164 of them in critical or intensive care — both all-time records.
Of the new cases, 200 were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 557 were in the Fraser Health region, 25 were in the Island Health region, 54 were in the Interior Health region and 26 were in the Northern Health region.
The province did not provide an update on COVID-19 variants of concern.
More than 26 per cent of British Columbians, nearly 1.37 million people, have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
B.C. has reported 121,751 total cases to date, while 1,546 people have died.