(Files by Brendan Pawliw-MyPGNow)
Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix announced 53 new cases of COVID-19 in British Columbia over two days for a total of 2,224.
Two of those cases occurred within Northern Health for a total of 51.
77 people are in hospital due to the virus with 20 of those in ICU.
However, three more deaths since Saturday’s update bring the provincial total to 117.
In addition, 1417 people have since recovered from COVID-19 in BC, for a recovery rate of 64%.
Dr Henry says the curve has now ‘flattened’ and that B.C. is well ahead of the rest of Canada in cases and deaths.
“This is the end of our beginning of this pandemic. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Henry adds the province is currently around 30 per cent of regular interactions, but that the virus can be kept in check if it stays below 60 per cent going forward.
“We might have increased numbers of cases and some hospitalizations … but they would be manageable. We’d be able to manage that, and there are things we can do to make these contacts safer for people as well.”
“Our challenge and our work together are to find that sweet spot. Somewhere around increasing our contacts by twice as many as we have now, but without allowing those opportunities for rapid exponential growth in our communities.”
Dr Henry provided some updated modelling today (Monday) where most of the people who have been sick are between 30 to 60 years of age.
She mentioned the virus continues to infect predominately women (healthcare workers) but older men tend to get more severe illness.
Twenty-one per cent of COVID-19 cases were healthcare workers.
Dix added “We can’t throw open our doors and undo everything we’ve done… This will be a different summer than any of us has ever known.”
The breakdown of cases by health authority is as follows:
845 in Vancouver Coastal Health (+13 since Saturday)
1,027 in Fraser Health (+35 since Saturday)
124 in Island Health (+1 since Saturday)
177 in Interior Health (+2 since Saturday)