There were 230 new cases and three deaths from COVID-19 in Interior Health on Friday, as now nine Interior residents have died from the virus in the past two days.
Across B.C. there were 671 new cases, and apart from IH there were also 230 new cases today in Fraser Health, 78 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 89 in Northern Health and 44 in Island Health.
B.C. health officials also say there are now 215 people in hospital with the virus and 118 in intensive care. That means there are 16 more hospitalizations and two more ICU patients compared to yesterday.
In the past month, since August 3, hospitalizations from the virus have quadrupled, and the number of ICU patients has risen six-fold. According to emergency room doctor at Royal Inland Hospital, COVID-related hospitalizations have spiked in Kamloops in the past two weeks which has led to many surgeries having to be rescheduled for other patients. Dr. Eric Haywood-Farmer also said the majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations are people who are unvaccinated.
There are 5,872 active cases, and that number is down slightly from yesterday, as the active case count in IH dropped from 2,112 to now 1,965 today.
Another 14,560 vaccine doses have been administered in the past day, including more than 6,800 people receiving a first dose. That means now 84.8 per cent of people 12 and older have gotten a first vaccine dose in B.C., while 77.1 per cent of those people are fully vaccinated.
Since August 23, when the B.C. government announced the vaccine status card would be coming on Sept. 13, now 72,841 people have gotten a first vaccine dose, which is almost double the first-dose rate from the 11 days prior.
Health officials will be announcing further details on the rollout of the vaccine status card on Tuesday.
Using the Kamloops Blazers as an example, Health Minister Adrian Dix told NL News this morning the vaccine status card is meant to allow more activities to happen, not less.
“There are going to be fans in the arena in Kamloops at some point this year,” he said, noting the vaccine status card will be the reason why.
