B.C.’s top doctor says there are now five confirmed cases of the new Omicron of COVID-19 in the province.
Dr. Bonnie Henry said Tuesday that all of the people infected are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. Three of these cases are in Vancouver Coastal Health while the other two are in Fraser Health.
“Three of them have been fully vaccinated with three different vaccination programs. Two people were unvaccinated,” she added. “They ranged in age from 18 to 60 and all of them are associated at this time with international travel to places like Nigeria, Egypt, a number of countries in south Africa and Iran.”
While the numbers are still relatively low, Henry cautioned that there could be more cases uncovered in the days and weeks ahead.
“We’ll continue to do whole genome sequencing and we have a rapid process for doing that now at the lab,” she said.
“We’ve been building up our whole genome sequencing program from the very beginning of this pandemic and it has enabled us to understand how this virus has changed over the course of the pandemic here in British Columbia.”
She said while it is for something like a new variant to create anxiety, British Columbia knows how to navigate through this using vaccines, masks and other protective measures.
Meanwhile, Henry also said that people over the age of 65 will be getting an invitation to book their COVID-19 vaccine booster dose starting at the end of this week.
“Please wait for your invite it’s coming we are making good progress and it’ll be rolling out over the next few weeks,” she said, adding that for most people, those booster shots are most effective six to eight months after their second dose.
A majority of people will start to become eligible in January 2022.
BC Reports 326 new COVID-19 cases; 88 in Interior Health
The province reported 326 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday with 88 of them across Interior Health.
Active cases are down to 2,814 (down by 62 from Monday) with a slight increase to 561 in Interior Health (up by two). Across B.C., there are 242 patients in hospital with COVID-19 (up by one), with 82 in intensive care (down by seven).
There were 92 cases reported in Fraser Health (930 active), 71 in Island Health (591), 53 in Vancouver Coastal Health (471), and 22 in Northern Health (261).
One new death was also reported in Northern Health taking the provincial death toll to 2,363 people.
As it stands, there remain five active health-care facility outbreaks, including at Ponderosa Lodge in Kamloops.
There are now 85.6 per cent (4,267,612) of eligible people over the age of five who have gotten their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 82 per cent (4,088,609) are fully vaccinated.
Health Minister Adrian Dix also noted Tuesday that about 134,000 children between the age of five and 11 have been been registered to get their COVID pediatric vaccines.
