Officials in British Columbia are again asking young people to avoid large social gatherings because of a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says people can influence the behaviour of those around them as more and more young people are now testing positive for the virus.

“It will require all of us reaching out to the people we know and some of it involves our individual actions, our saying no to going to private parties where we don’t know everybody and saying no to organizing such parties, and I think that’s something that we can help each other with in the community,” he said.

“We are all influences and we can all influence the behaviour of ourselves first of all but also of the people around us in how we behave and how say no respectfully to behaviour that is unwise in the context of the pandemic that goes contrary to the advice of Dr. [Bonnie] Henry.”

With yesterday’s data, B.C. has reported 1,012 COVID-19 cases since July 10 along with eight new deaths, while the active cases have gone up by 138 per cent from 187 to 445 in that same time frame.

The number of people in hospital has however dropped 16 in hospital – five in ICU – to nine in hospital, with two people in ICU as of yesterday.

“When we talk about younger people [testing positive], we are talking about people between 20 and 39. I think its not fair to describe all that to youth,” Dix said. “There are people in those categories with lots of experience. It’s also not fair to blame those who have tested positive.”

In announcing yesterday’s cases, Dr. Henry says we need to do better as a province to stop exposure events from happening.

“Parties and gatherings with young people, many of whom you don’t know, even if there aren’t 50 people are a concern. And we have seen that. We saw that on the July 1st long weekend,” she said.

“We’ve seen it across the province, where people have been coming together and having group gatherings with different people and not maintaining safe distances from people they don’t know.”