The coronavirus pandemic is showing no signs of going away any time soon in northern B.C., with 106 new cases reported in the Northern Health region on Friday, among 714 new cases provincewide.
Current outbreaks in the acute care ward and Jubilee Lodge long-term care facility at University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George continue as a cause for concern for local health officials and frontline workers in the hospital. There are now 1,043 active cases in the northern half of the province.
The fourth wave of the COVID-19 virus has 77 people currently hospitalized in Northern Health facilities, including 11 in critical care. There were no new deaths attributed to COVID infections in the Northern Health region, but 11 more people died in B.C., including six in Interior Health, four in Fraser Health and one in Vancouver Coastal Health.
Provincially, there are 6,317 active cases and 328 individuals in hospital with 138 in intensive care. Of the 187,694 total cases in B.C. since the pandemic began in January 2020, 178,980 have recovered and there have been 1,973 deaths. In Northern Health, there have been 11,957 confirmed cases and 174 deaths in that time.
Friday’s reported new cases and the number of active cases in the previous 24 hours in the other health regions in the province are as follows:
Fraser Health – 274 new cases, 2,353 total active cases;
Vancouver Coastal Health – 73 new, 889 active cases;
Interior Health – 205 new, 1,360 active cases
Island Health – 56 new, 614 active cases.
Getting vaccinated has proven to be the most effective way to fight the spread of the virus and avoid getting seriously ill from COVID-19. From Sept. 23-29, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 71.3 per cent of cases.
Of the 5,152 total cases in B.C. in the past week, 3,311 (64.3 per cent) were unvaccinated, 359 (seven per cent) were partially vaccinated and 1,482 (28.8 per cent) were fully vaccinated.
In the two-week period from Sept. 15-29, unvaccinated individuals accounted for 80.8 per cent of hospitalizations. Of that total of 426 hospitalizations, 302 (70.9 per cent) were not vaccinated, 42 (9.9 per cent) were partially vaccinated and 82 (19.2 per cent) were fully vaccinated.
Over the past week, the number of cases per 100,000 population after adjusting for the age of vaccine eligibility were 296.6 (not vaccinated), 98 (partially vaccinated) and 36.6 (fully vaccinated). In the past two weeks, the number of cases per 100,000 people serious enough to result in hospitalizations were 44.4 (not vaccinated), 17.7 (partially vaccinated) and 1.9 (fully vaccinated).
As of Friday, 88 per cent (4,079,918) of eligible 12-and-older people in B.C. have received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 81.1 per cent (3,761,048) have received their second dose. Of all the province’s eligible adults, 88.5 per cent (3,828,773) have received their first dose and 81.9 per cent (3,543,318) have received their second dose. Since December 2020, B.C. has administered 7,852,885 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
Northern Health is reminding people to take precautions to avoid getting infected. That includes regular handwashing and disinfection with alcohol-based hand-rub products, wearing masks in public places and practicing proper sneeze/cough etiquette. If you develop cold-, influenza- or COVID-like symptoms, contact your primary care provider or call the Northern Health Virtual Primary and Community Care Clinic Information Line at 1-844-645-7811 to arrange for a test. You must have an appointment for a COVID-19 test. Do not go to the emergency room for the test.
The BC Centre for Disease Control will post updates on school outbreaks online at
http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/public-exposures.
