B.C.’s Health Minister says officials are monitoring the COVID-19 situation across Interior Health as it continues to remain relatively higher than other health authorities.
Adrian Dix says in the past week, the test positivity rate in Interior Health has been about 3 per cent, compared to an average of 0.85 per cent across the rest of the province.
“In March and April, we would have been celebrating and throwing parades for a 3 per cent test positivity as they see in Interior Health,” he said, during a press conference on Thursday. “And what we need to now is continue to respect the measures that are in place and continue to respect one another to reduce transmission.”
“It is fair to say the seven day rolling average is up somewhat but I also say that the test positivity in four of the five regional health authorities is still under one per cent. That has consistently come down over time. And we have to look at it day over day to see the impact.”
Between Saturday, July 17, and Thursday, July 22, Interior Health has reported 163 new COVID-19 cases – about 40 per cent of the total 399 cases in British Columbia. There were 37 new cases reported in the Interior today – the most in a single health authority – part of 89 across the province.
There are currently 781 active cases in B.C., with 53 people in hospital, 15 in intensive care. In Interior Health, there are 244 active cases, second only to Vancouver Coastal Health which has 263 active cases.
In Fraser Health, there were 30 new cases reported (219 active) along with 18 in Vancouver Coastal Health, three new cases (18 active cases), one new case in Northern Health (31 active cases) and no new cases in people who live outside of Canada (six active cases).
“What that reflects in part is significant outbreaks and at least one case associated with an event in Grand Forks where we saw significant transmission [earlier this month],” Dix added. “If you look at Grand Forks on a map because of that one case, it was off the charts.”
“What we’ve seen from Step 1 to Step 2 and from Step 2 to Step 3, is overall the seven day rolling average of cases going down. Every day we monitor and we look at it and look at variants.”
While the most recent data from July 11 to 17 shows cases in Grand Forks have stabilized, it was still relatively high in the Okanagan, which has long been one of the hotspots for new COVID cases in Interior Health, though the numbers have been improving in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry said many of the new COVID-19 cases in the Interior are being reported in people who are not yet vaccinated.
“It is clusters, primarily in smaller communities, where there’s been an introduction and some transmission, particularly in pockets of unvaccinated people,” she said.
“This is where we’re trying to get vaccine out to people and that is a challenge, particularly in the North and Interior where we have many small communities, and of course, right now where we have everything from wildfire and smoke as well to contend with.”
On the vaccine front, there are now 80.2 per cent of people over the age of 12 who have gotten one dose of a vaccine, while 56.9 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Since December 2020, the Province has administered 6,361,627 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.
“I do feel that [Interior Health] has a strong public health response and that they are managing cases,” Henry added. “We know where each of the transmission events are happening. I do expect it will slow down in the coming days and weeks as we manage this and as we get immunization rates up.”
40 new cases on Monday
76 new cases on Tuesday
78 new cases on Wednesday
89 new cases on Thursday🤔🤔🤔Sommething about this trend doesn’t sit well with me https://t.co/3mbFB57SS6
— Jeff Andreas (@Jeffrey_Andreas) July 22, 2021
