COVID-19 numbers are falling across the Okanagan and Kelowna is no longer the provincial hot spot.
For the first time in weeks, the Central Okanagan has not been painted red in the BC Centre for Disease Control’s map of COVID-19 numbers by Local Health Area.
From Sept. 12-18, the region that spans Lake Country to Peachland had 257 cases, for an average of 37 cases a day. That’s a 40 per cent decline from a week earlier, Sept. 5-11, when the area had 360 cases. A week before that there were 478 cases.
Similar declines in case counts are being seen in other parts of the valley as well.
In Vernon, there were 112 cases from Sept. 12-18, a drop of 32 per cent from 165 a week earlier.
Penticton’s COVID-19 caseload rose slightly to 53 from 47, however, during the prior two weeks, it was at 69.
Kamloops has also seen some improvement, reporting 158 cases in the most recent week, compared to 270 the week prior.
While the Okanagan appears to have better control of its pandemic activity, case numbers across the Interior are often higher than any other health region.
On Wednesday, health officials reported there were 759 new cases of COVID-19 in British Columbia along with 10 additional deaths.
Of the new cases, 233 were in the Interior Health region, 101 cases were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 214 were in the Fraser Health region, 79 were in Island Health, and 129 were in Northern Health. Three cases involved people who reside outside of Canada.
After rising earlier in the week, the number of people in hospital with the disease fell slightly as of Thursday to 324. Of those patients, 157 are in intensive care, an increase of two.