The B.C. government is declaring a state of public emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is something that, as you know, we’ve had as a tool in our toolkit for some time,” said Dr. Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry.

“I felt this is the tool that we need now. We’ve taken a number of unprecedented measures in the last few days and this declaration of an emergency enables me to be faster, more streamlined and nimble in the things that we need to do right now.”

Henry made the declaration after reporting a staggering 83 new COVID-19 cases in the province, pushing the total to 186 cases.

“That’s a large increase, and its just not reflective on the number of people who tested positive in the last 24 hours,” she added.

“As we’ve been talking in the last few days, we’ve had a dramatic increase in the numbers of people going for testing and people being tested. As well as, expansion of testing to five different sites in the province and more are coming on board.”

In reporting the numbers, Henry said there were three new deaths – two at the Lynn Valley Care Centre, and the third was a man in his 80’s in the Fraser Health Region. There are seven people in hospital, four in intensive care.

Seven of BC’s COVID-19 cases are in the Interior Health Region, 116 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 47 in Fraser Health, 12 on Vancouver Island, and four in Northern Health region.

B.C. joins Ontario and Alberta so far in declaring public health emergencies, all three declarations happened today.

As well, the province is ordering all bars and clubs to close as they cannot meet social distancing protocols. Restaurants and cafes might be able to stay open, but if they can’t they too have to close.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says the state of public health emergency means Dr. Henry has more power to enforce her verbal orders.

He notes that 500,000 people have already used the province’s self-assessment tool online since it launched yesterday.