The mayor of Kamloops says we’re in the thick of the pandemic’s fourth wave and the Delta variant of COVID-19 is “wreaking havoc.”

Ken Christian is asking people to continue to be cautious, acknowledging people may be complacent after a year-and-a-half of a global pandemic which continues.

“My urging to the public is that they limit their social interactions. By all means, do not attend work, school, church, or social events if you are sick… I think because we’ve been at this so long we’ve become a bit complacent in terms of some of our behaviours. And it’s time we ramp those right back up because we are really facing a challenge,” Christian says.

“For the few remaining Kamloopsians who are vaccine complacent, I would hope that they would avail themselves of many of the pop-up vaccination opportunities that the Interior Health Authority is making available. We need to protect our acute care space right now. It is at a premium, if not exhausted.”

Hospitalizations have risen across B.C. for several weeks, with Kamloops and Interior Health being hit especially hard. There are now 324 people in hospital with the virus in B.C., and 157 of those people are in intensive care. While the B.C. government does not provide COVID-19 patient breakdowns by hospital, staff inside Royal Inland Hospital have told NL News this month that COVID-19 patients are now taking up the bulk of intensive care beds.

In Northern B.C. this week, more than dozen COVID-19 patients have been flown to hospitals in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island to receive treatment.

Meanwhile, the Delta variant accounts for more than 99 per cent of new COVID-19 cases in B.C., according to weekly data from the BC Centre for Disease Control.