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B.C. adds 80 more COVID-19 cases, one new in Northern Health

B.C. reaches 200 deaths from the virus
Jess Balzer
Jess Balzer
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B.C. Deputy Provincial Health Officer Dr. Réka Gustafson. (via Flickr/Province of B.C.)

B.C. has officially reached 200 deaths since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the province in January. 

Deputy Provincial Health Officer Dr. Réka Gustafson and Health Minister Adrian Dix announced two more deaths this afternoon (Aug. 20), along with 80 new positive COVID-19 cases in the past day for a grand total of 4,825 provincially. 

One new case was confirmed in Northern Health, bringing its total to 121 since March.   

There was some good news today (Aug. 20) for the region with Haida Gwaii officially hitting no active cases after an outbreak had been declared on July 24. 

The Old Massett Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) said there is only one person still in isolation through Northern Health contact tracing.

Today also marked three weeks since the last local case was identified by symptoms on July 30 (later confirmed in the lab on Aug. 6).

Haida Gwaii has had a total of 26 epidemiologically-linked, lab-confirmed cases to date and no evidence of wider community spread.

"Northern Health and the First Nations Health Authority continue to work with Council of the Haida Nation and municipal governments on Haida Gwaii," the authority says in a statement, adding community outbreak measures are still in place.

"Haida Gwaii residents are encouraged to continue to work together and support each other in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Public health officials will be monitoring the situation carefully over coming weeks and will declare the outbreak over when they are confident that chains of transmission have been stopped."

An earlier update from the Village of Queen Charlotte EOC on Aug. 12 said that with two, 14-day incubation periods over, the public health officer did not expect any new cases to occur as part of the same epi-linked cluster.

A total of 3,845 have recovered across the province. 

Among B.C.'s total cases, 780 are active, 11 people are in hospital and four are in ICU.

Currently, there are 2,574 people under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases.

- with files from Kyle Balzer, PrinceGeorgeMatters, and Karissa Gall, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter