B.C. officials are reporting 53 new cases of COVID-19 since Saturday, along with three more deaths, for a total of 2,224 cases and 117 deaths.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says 34 cases were identified between Saturday and Sunday, May 2 to May 3, and the other 19 were reported between Sunday and Monday, May 3 to May 4.

Across Interior Health, there are now 177 cases of the virus, an increase of two since Saturday.

As the province plans to start easing some restrictions, Dr. Henry says its important that people go about their daily lives in a way that is safe to avoid a steep increase in the number of cases.

“If we increase our contacts from where we are now to about 40 per cent, we would expect that our new cases will continue to be relatively low and our hospitalizations would similarly stay relatively low,” Henry said. “Similarly, if we increase our number of contacts – basically double what we are at now from 30 to 60 per cent – we might have an increased number of cases, and some hospitalizations as well but again, they would be manageable.”

Henry however cautioned that if we were to go back to how things were in December, it could lead to steep increase in the number of cases and hospitalizations, similar to what has been noticed in other places around the world.

“Our challenge is to find that sweet spot where we can increasing our contacts but without allowing those opportunities for rapidly exponential growth of the virus in our communities,” Henry said. “We need to ensure that our health system continues to have the capacity both for COVID-19, but also for all of those other health issues.”

As it stands, there are now 77 people in hospital with COVID-19, of which 20 are in intensive care. It is an increase of five people in hospital since Saturday, but a decrease of three people in ICU.

And Henry says she is still concerned about people returning to the province after having worked at the Kearl Lake Oilsands project in Northern Alberta.

Of the total number of cases in B.C., Dr. Henry says that 1,417 people – or about 63 per cent – are now considered to have fully recovered.