Island Health reported 292 new cases of COVID-19 since April 1 and now has 463 active cases, according to the health authority’s website. Of these, 182 are in the central island, 254 are in the south and 27 are in the north.
There was one new death reported in the past 24 hours in Island Health, according to Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer. There have now been 31 total deaths in the region.
Seventeen people are hospitalized in Island Health, four of whom are in critical care, according to the B.C. government COVID-19 dashboard.
Across the province there were 1,068 new cases reported today — there are now 8,671 active. Of the active cases, 328 are hospitalized, 96 of whom are in critical care. Three new deaths were reported today.
“Of the people in hospital right now, 63 of them are people who have been identified as having one of the variants of concern, primarily the B.1.1.7 (UK), which is 42 of the 63 people in hospital right now and that is about 13 per cent of hospitalizations,” Henry said.
There have been another 207 confirmed cases that are variants of concerns (VOC) in the province — there are 266 active VOC cases.
The province has administered 912,056 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, according to Henry, 87,474 of them were second doses.
“In addition to the age-based program, we have continued with immunizations in high-risk workplaces and to assist with outbreak response. The parallel worker-focused program remains on pause until more information is available on the safety signal connected to the AstraZeneca/COVISHIELD vaccine,” reads a joint statement from Henry and Adrian Dix, minister of health.
Henry said the province may be receiving doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine sometime near the end of April, which will allow it to restart the worker vaccine program.
People aged 71 and older and Indigenous people 18 and older are currently eligible to book vaccine appointments.
