The Oceanside local health area’s new COVID-19 cases have nearly doubled in recent weeks.
The area recorded 58 new cases between March 28 and April 3, a significant increase from the 32 recorded the previous week, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control. Oceanside recorded only four new cases in the first week of March, for comparison.
Island Health reported 68 more cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of active cases to 486. Of those, 194 are in the central island region, 261 are in the south island and 31 are in the north. Nineteen people are in hospital, including six in ICU. No new deaths were reported today.
B.C. recorded 997 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths over the last 24 hours. There are now 8,728 active cases, including 330 people hospitalized with the virus, 105 of them in critical care.
The province has administered 946,096 doses of the three COVID-19 vaccines, including 87,504 second doses, according to a joint statement by Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer and Adrian Dix, minister of health. The province said it has vaccinated almost 20 per cent of those eligible.
Seniors 70 and older, Indigenous people over 18 and clinically extremely vulnerable people who have received a letter can now book appointments. Over 305,000 people have used the province’s online vaccine registration and booking system in its first two days of operation.
The province said no genome sequencing was completed since yesterday’s report, so no new variant of concern (VOC) data is available. There are currently 3,766 confirmed VOC cases in B.C, though only 266 were active as of yesterday.
“This includes 2,837 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant, 51 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant and 878 cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant,” reads the statement.
Across B.C., 935 more people have recovered from the virus, bringing the total to 96,626. There are 14,602 people under active public health monitoring as a result of exposure to the virus.
