The B.C. Ministry of Health reported 13 new cases of COVID-19 in the Northern Health region on Thursday.
The number of active cases in the north rose to 116, up by more than 30 per cent from the end of last week. Two people in the region were hospitalized with COVID, according to B.C. Centre for Disease Control, both of whom were listed as being in intensive care.
One new COVID-related death was reported in the province, in the Interior Health region, on Thursday, increasing the province’s death toll from the pandemic to 1,779 – including 159 residents of the Northern Health region.
As of Thursday, 82.3 per cent of eligible British Columbians (ages 12 and up) had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 71.6 per cent were fully vaccinated. A total of 7.14 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the province, including 310,057 in the Northern Health region.
There was a total of 512 new COVID-19 cases in B.C. on Thursday, with 3,834 cases active.
During a press briefing on Thursday, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said between 93 and 96 per cent of cases are in people who aren’t fully vaccinated.
“We’ve made excellent progress in our vaccination effort. (But) we continue to see transmission in pockets of people who are unvaccinated,” Henry said.
The province has seen several incidents of COVID-19, including the quick-spreading Delta strain, introduced into long-term care and assisted-living facilities in the province by unvaccinated staff. The province currently has eight outbreaks in long-term care facilities – four in the Interior, three in the Fraser Health region and one on Vancouver Island.
On Thursday, Henry announced a public health order requiring all long-term care and assisted-living staff to be vaccinated by Oct. 12, and any unvaccinated staff will be required to wear masks and personal protective equipment while at work until they are full vaccinated, she said.
All volunteers and personal service workers going into those facilities will be required to be fully vaccinated effective immediately, Henry added.
The percentage of unvaccinated long-term care and assisted living workers isn’t available on a facility-by-facility basis, Henry said, and part of what the order does is require the collection of that information.
The province is also looking at potentially requiring other health care workers and workers in vulnerable settings to be vaccinated, she said.
“We recognize a small portion of the population can’t be vaccinated (because of health conditions). We’re working with the unions on that,” Henry said. “This is an extra measure to make sure we have the best protection possible.”
Employers do have the power to require staff to be vaccinated as a condition of employment, Henry said.
“It is not mandatory for citizens in British Columbia to be vaccinated, but there may be things you can not do,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said. “We want everybody to be vaccinated, and that is particularly true in long-term care. It’s just the human thing to do, the responsible thing to do.”
