B.C.’s top doctor says the province is looking to share more data showing which communities have been affected by COVID-19, similar to how Toronto and Montreal have done in releasing maps that show the number of cases specific to neighbourhoods.

So far, the province hasn’t released much information outside of which health authorities are affected by the virus, but Dr. Bonnie Henry says those kinds of heat maps don’t always tell the whole story.

“Our convention in public health is that we label cases by where they live. So it doesn’t tell you where they might have been exposed, it doesn’t tell you what community the risk was in,” she said on Thursday. “So those are the challenges that we face.”

Henry says the data from Ontario shows that some lower-income or more ethnically diverse neighborhoods appear to me more affected by COVID-19, and officials are looking to see if that is the case in B.C. as well.

B.C. has reported 2,558 cases of COVID-19 and a 164 deaths so far – with the vast majority in the Lower Mainland. There have been just 195 cases across Interior Health.

“We actually have few cases in many parts of the province,” Henry said. “So again, it becomes identifiable information quite quickly so we have to balance that but yes, we will continue to look at this and I am hopeful that we’ll have some more geographic representation in the coming days.”

Earlier this week, Henry said any new cases that are a result of the easing of restrictions will start to appear over the coming week.