Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced 35 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in B.C. on Saturday afternoon.
That brings the total in B.C. to 1,445 which includes 135 in the Interior Health region. That is an increase of two in the region since Friday. She also updated the numbers of people in hospital saying that there are 134 people hospitalized, 63 are in critical care or ICU and there have now been 905 individuals who have fully recovered.
Henry thanked people for staying home this holiday weekend. “On this long weekend we have been providing messages about the need for us all to stay home. This is not a time to be going travelling even if it is to a summer home or a cottage. We hope that everybody is off enjoying their weekend spending time with their close family, with their households and taking the time to unwind and be kind to each other. I sincerely hope that most people have avoided unnecessary travel. All across the province, we know that these physical distancing measures are in place and we know that they’re so important to be able to continue the trend that we are having in managing this pandemic.”
Henry says that ferries are required to cap their passengers levels at 50 per cent of normal capacity. She added that they have reduced their hours of service and says she’s been told that they have had just a fraction of normal volumes this weekend.
B.C. is still not testing at its full capacity and Henry says there are a few reasons for that. “So, we have been targeting pour testing. We’ve also been doing surveillance testing. So that is any swab that anybody in the province sends in for testing for any respiratory virus automatically is tested for COVID as well. We also have been targeting health care workers, our outbreaks and out percentage positive has been going up which tells us that we’re finding the people that we need to find… Our capacity has increased across the province which is great. One of the main reasons that we’re not seeing a lot of increased testing is because we’re seeing fewer people with respiratory illness that are being sent for testing. So that is a balance. I expect that we’ll continue to increase the amount of testing that is being done, but we know there are fewer people coming back from other countries and there are fewer people with signs and symptoms that could be related to this.”
On personal protective equipment, Henry says there is very much a coordinated effort.”I think we’re in a reasonable place. I won’t ever say good at this point because we know there’s continuing challenges, but as we reported we did get supplies that were needed in over the past week and this is where I think it’s really helpful for the future, in both Canada and here in BC we’ve started domestic production of things like gowns which were a challenge. So those things are starting as well.”
Dr. Henry is scheduled to next provide an update on the COVID-19 situation in B.C. on Monday afternoon at 1:30.
