By CKPG Today

COVID-19 update

71 new cases of COVID-19 in Northern Health

Feb 5, 2021 | 3:28 PM

VICTORIA — Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix announced 471 new cases of COVID-19 in B.C. today.

That brings the total number of test positive cases in B.C. since the pandemic began to 69,716 though 62,567 of those people have recovered.

Here’s the regional breakdown:

• Vancouver Coastal Health: 108
• Fraser Health: 208
• Island Health: 28
• Interior Health: 56
• Northern Health: 71

ckpg news special

The Resource Reality

1h ago

Crime

Paramedics injured after object thrown through ambulance window

18h ago

BC Seniors Advocate

Wait times too long: BC Seniors Advocate

22h ago

“There are 4,423 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. There are 253 individuals currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 70 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation,” say Henry and Dix.

On top of that, they say 6,886 people are under public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases.

“To date, 149,564 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 10,366 of which are second doses,” add Henry and Dix.

Sadly there have been six more COVID-19 related deaths for a total of 1,246 in B.C.

“Today, we shared the latest COVID-19 modelling data. There are some encouraging signs that the efforts of people throughout our province are working. By spending less time with others, by staying local and using our layers of protection, we are flattening our curve.

“We want to protect the progress we have made since the start the year and not throw away our success.

“To do this, we need to buy ourselves some time – time to get our immunization program back up to speed as vaccine supply is restored and scaled up, and time to understand whether and how the variants of concern will affect transmission in our communities. This understanding will allow us to respond to any surge in the variants of concern quickly, and we need only look around us to see how severe the impact can be if infections with these variants take off.

“With this in mind, the current province-wide public health orders are being kept in place.

“Between now and the end of the month, we will be continually reconsidering the need for the restrictions based on incidence and prevalence of the virus, new information about transmission, especially understanding the impact of variants, and the progress of vaccine supply and our immunization program,” conclude Henry and Dix.