B.C.’s health minister says 55 patients in intensive care units in the Northern Health region have been transferred to other health regions in the province.
Of those patients, 43 have tested positive for COVID-19, and 42 are not fully vaccinated, Adrian Dix said at a Tuesday press briefing.
Fourteen patients were flown from northern B.C. to other health authorities over the Thanksgiving long weekend.
Calling the situation in B.C.’s north “extremely serious,” Dix said the patients have been sent by air to hospitals in Island Health, Fraser Health, and Vancouver Coastal Health to ease the strain on the health-care system in Northern Health.
Dix said every effort is being made to treat already those in critical care, adding that vaccination is the key to easing pressure on the province’s health-care system.
“For those people walking around unvaccinated who might be in those critical care beds in two or three weeks, I say to them, now is the time, surely, to get vaccinated,” he said.
Dix said vaccination rates in the province are impressive — 88.8 per cent of eligible British Columbians aged 12 and older have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 82.6 per cent have received two doses — but need to be higher.
“We need to come together now and raise vaccination levels,” he said.