B.C.’s Health Minister says while 102 new cases of COVID-19 reported over the weekend might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things in Canada and the world, its not something provincial health officials are comfortable with.
Adrian Dix says it is important that people not let their guard down.
“The reproductive rate is higher than one and we have to together do something about that,” he said. “Even if there were not a significant number of cases over the last three days, the fact that that rate is going up over the period leading into this time would be a cause for concern.”
Dix says the virus has affected people young and old in the province in different ways, adding its especially important now to stay home if you’re sick, as people begin to move around the province during the summer months.
“Vancouver Coastal Health in the early days of the pandemic was the centre of cases, and now there are essentially the same number of cases in Interior Health – active cases – as are in Vancouver Coastal Health which tells us we can’t let our guard down.”
The exact number of active cases isn’t clear just yet, but it will be on Thursday when the province puts out its weekly COVID-19 surveillance report. Since Friday though, almost half (57) of the new cases (130) announced by Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, have been in the Interior Health Authority. It is after weeks of very limited spread of the virus in the region in previous months.
“We run the risk of having a rapid rebound in new cases. We are starting to see an uptick. This is concerning, but it is not foregone that we will have a rapid rebound,” Henry said. “It is something that we can make a difference in, if we pay attention now.”
As of Monday’s update, Henry said there were more than 60 cases linked to the outbreak in Kelowna, and she noted on Friday that she is isn’t sure how many people will be infected.
“If we increase our social interactions too much without doing it safely, we do risk a rebound that will impact us all. The number of new cases reported over the last three days is concerning,” Henry said. “We have been very effective in containing the spread, but we all need to do our part. This is a warning to us.”
She says B.C. is at about 65 to 75 per cent of normal pre COVID-19 contacts in our many communities, and warned of the possibility of explosive growth if people are not careful.
“We need to be the voice of care with our family and friends, to remind everybody that we can increase our contacts, our travel, but we need to do it safely, and we know how to do that. We have done that in B.C. and we can go back to doing that.”
Back in March, before restrictions were put in place, people who tested positive for COVID-19 were traced back to 11 or 12 contacts each. It dropped to about three or four with restrictions, but those numbers are back into the double-digit range.
And Henry says in some cases there have been test-positive cases who have had between 20 and 30 contacts.
“We are starting to see people who are testing positive in the last few days having a large number of contacts again,” Henry said. “We knew this was going to happen but the challenge now is we are no longer having safe connections.”
