British Columbia confirmed another six COVID-19-related deaths as the number of cases in hospital dropped for the 46th consecutive day.
B.C. health officials confirmed 290 positive cases in hospital, an overnight drop of eight, including 46 cases in critical or intensive care.
The number of outbreaks in health-care facilities fell to seven: six in long-term care and one at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
The number of new cases reported, 199, also fell below 200 for the first time since early August.
However new case counts are not directly comparable, due to limitations on testing imposed as the Omicron variant surged in the province in December.
As of Friday, 87.8 per cent of B.C.’s population (90.8 per cent of those eligible) had received one dose of vaccine, 84.1 per cent of B.C.’s population (86.9 per cent of those eligible) had received two doses, and 49.3 per cent of B.C.’s population (58.7 per cent of those eligible) had received three doses.
People with two or more doses accounted for 82.8 per cent of new cases over the past week and 73.8 per cent of cases in hospital over the past two weeks.
Monthly B.C. CDC data continues to show unvaccinated people at a significantly higher risk of severe outcomes.
From Feb. 8 to March 7, per 100,000 population, there were 117.2 unvaccinated cases in hospital, 27.2 unvaccinated cases in ICU and 13.8 deaths among the unvaccinated, compared to 39.7 vaccinated (two-dose) cases in hospital, 9.2 vaccinated cases in ICU and 6.2 deaths among people with two doses.
Since the start of the pandemic, British Columbia has reported 353,578 total cases, while 2,967 people have died.