Dr. Bonnie Henry travels to Prince George as in-person briefings move to 1 per week

B.C.’s provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry is in Prince George Tuesday for the latest COVID-19 update.

Health Minister Adrian Dix, who was speaking from Vancouver, said they want to urge everyone in the northern regions to get their COVID vaccine.

In the northern region, he said most communities are now over the 50 per cent vaccination rate.

Dawson Creek is now over 50 per cent, along with Fort St. John and Tumbler Ridge, which was sitting at about 50 per cent is now up around 60 per cent, Dix added.

“A community like Prince Rupert has differences in a community (compared to) Fort St. John and the other side of of the great Northern Health Authority, but what happened in Prince Rupert was we went from a lot of cases to almost none because people got vaccinated,” Dix said.

Henry said she wanted to travel to the northern region to thank all the healthcare workers and those on the front lines of the pandemic for all their hard work.

“So it’s not to point out those who are falling behind, but to help us raise those levels everywhere,” she said. “In the community that was behind a few weeks ago, we hope (it) will be ahead in the coming weeks. And that will require more hard work.”

As of Tuesday morning, 4,436,432 doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in British Columbia, according to Canada’s vaccine tracker.

Only 205,210 doses have been administered in the Northern Health region, which is the lowest-vaccinated region in the province.

Henry and Dix will also be gracing TV and computer screens less as in-person COVID-19 briefings will be going down to one per week.

4:22 B.C. reports 229 new COVID-19 cases over three days as daily average dips below 100

On Tuesday, B.C. recorded 56 cases of the virus and no additional deaths.

Over the weekend, the province reported 229 cases of COVID-19 and three additional deaths.

There were 94 cases from Friday to Saturday, while 90 cases were reported from Saturday to Sunday.

Forty-five cases were recorded from Sunday to Monday, the lowest single-day number since the BC Centre for Disease Control recorded 45 cases on Aug. 25.

The seven-day moving average for new cases dipped to 97, the lowest since Sept. 2, 2020.

—With files from Jon Azpiri