COVID death toll surpasses 200 in northern B.C.

The killer COVID-19 virus has now claimed the lives of more than 200 northern B.C. residents.

The Northern Health region confirmed three more deaths over a one-day period from Thursday to Friday for a total of 202 since the pandemic began.

The COVID plague has so far claimed the lives of 2,109 B.C. residents, 13 of whom died in the past 24 hours. Three of those deaths happened over the past day in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, three were in Interior Health, and Fraser Health and Island Health each had two new deaths attributed to the virus.

Two days after Northern Health posted a record-high one-day total of 191 new cases of COVID, the number of new cases dropped to 130 on Friday, among 649 new cases B.C. heath authorities reported. There are now 5,106 active cases in the province, 880 of which are in the northern half of the province.

By comparison, Fraser Health reported 281 new cases and 2,051 active cases; Vancouver Coastal Health had 61 new cases and 693 active cases; Interior Health confirmed 88 new cases and 778 active cases, while Island Health has 130 new cases and 545 active cases.

B.C. hospitals currently have 365 COVID patients admitted, and 143 of them are being treated in intensive care units. In Nothern Health there were 78 people hospitalized due to COVID and 21 of them are require intensive care.

There were no new health-care facility outbreaks reported Friday. Outbreaks continue at UHNBC’s acute care ward in Prince George, G.R Baker Memorial Hospital in Quesnel and at Wrinch Memorial Hospital in Hazelton.

On the vaccine front, 89.4 per cent (4,145,426) people aged 12 and older have received their first doses, while 83.9 per cent (3,891,100) have received their second doses.

In the one-week period from Oct. 14-20, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 65.2 per cent of the province’s COVID cases, and in the two weeks from Oct. 7-20 they accounted for 77.0 per cent of hospitalizations for COVID-related issues.

In the past week, the number of cases in the province per 100,000, adjusted for age eligibility were: not vaccinated, 311.3, partially vaccinated – 99.5; and fully vaccinated – 36.7.

 The number of hospitalizations over the past two weeks per 100,000 of vaccine-eligible people were: not vaccinated – 55.7; partially vaccinated – 11.5; fully vaccinated – 2.3.