Zero COVID cases in Northern Health

Northern Health continued to be COVID-19 free as of Tuesday.

Public health officials reported no new cases in the region, keeping the number of active cases at zero for at least the fourth day in a row.

The picture was not as pretty for the rest of the province but not so bad either as the number of active cases stood at 174, down by eight from Monday, although hospitalizations grew by two to 16 with seven of them in critical care, up by one.

As well, one death was recorded, pushing the total since the outbreak began to 170. No deaths have been recorded in Northern Health.

During a briefing on Tuesday, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry presented results of a recent modeling exercise that suggested British Columbians are at the "threshold" in terms of the amount of social contacts they can make without the virus' spread getting out of control.

However, she indicated plans to move the province into the third phase of its restart plan will go ahead in the coming weeks. Details on what that will entail remained vague although Henry suggested it will be good news for the tourism sector and sports organizations.

But she did stress gatherings will remain capped at 50 and, with the exception of truck drivers, those who have traveled out of country will still be subject to a 14-day quarantine upon returning.

She said the key to whether or not the province will back away from eased restrictions is whether there are significant increase in hospitalizatons and cases in intensive care.

"Those are the warning signs to us," Henry said.

Henry also said public health officials will need to have enough resources in place to track down 75 per cent of people who have been in contact with a case within three days of it being reported to effectively control an outbreak.

It will mean "more complete contact tracing within a shorter period of time," she said.

She encouraged people to continue to keep their "bubbles small" and to know who they have been in contact with.

Between June 8 and 21, just one case was reported in Northern Health and it was in the northeast health service delivery area, according to a breakdown provided Tuesday. For most of the rest of the province, the rate of cases stood at no more than five per 100,000 population but Fraser Valley East was a hotspot as the rate there exceeded 15 per 100,000.