COVID-19: B.C. reports 341 new cases and 6 deaths, says no sign of new variant yet

British Columbia reported 341 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, along with six more deaths as officials responded to an emerging variant of concern.

The update saw the province’s seven-day average for new cases fall to 352, and left B.C. with 3.035 active cases — the lowest both figures have been since Aug. 8.

There were 291 active cases in hospital, including 115 COVID-19 patients in critical or intensive care.

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More than 4.21 million British Columbians, accounting for 91 per cent of those eligible and 81.9 per cent of B.C.’s population have had at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Of them, more than four million people, 87.6 per cent of those eligible and 78.8 per cent of B.C.’s population, have had two doses.

The province says people who were not fully vaccinated accounted for 59.2 per cent of cases in the last week and 68.4 per cent of hospitalizations in the past two weeks.

The update came as the federal government issued new travel restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the new Omicron variant of concern, first detected in South Africa.

2:04 Tam says ‘no indications’ new ‘Omicron’ COVID-19 variant present in Canada so far

Federal chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the new variant had a high number of mutations, which could lead to greater transmissibility, a stronger effect on the body’s immune system and less susceptibility to vaccines.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry issued a joint statement saying B.C. was closely watching the new variant and backing the new federal restrictions.

“At this time, there is no evidence that this variant has been introduced into British Columbia,” the statement reads.

“The BC Centre for Disease Control’s public health lab has sequenced over 90,000 virus isolates in B.C. and will continue to use whole genome sequencing to monitor for all variants circulating in B.C., including this new VOC Omicron.”

The province was also working with the federal government to identify travellers returning from areas of concern to arrange testing, it said.

Since the start of the pandemic, B.C. has reported 217,099 total cases while 2,322 people have died.