Health officials have made several new orders in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases across B.C.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says restaurants will have to close for dine-in service as of midnight tonight. This new order will apply until April 19, and will exclude outdoor patios at restaurants.
Henry has also announced all indoor group fitness classes and all adult fitness classes are suspended until April 19, starting at midnight.
Meanwhile, no longer will religious groups be able to hold indoor services over the next two months. Henry had announced four days ago that place of worship could hold up to four religious services between March 28 and May 13, with no more than 50 people. Outdoor religious services will, however, be allowed to continue with up to 10 people.
The Whistler-Blackcomb Ski Resort is also being shut down until April 19.
Henry says we need a “circuit breaker” to cut off chains of transmission. She says indoor gatherings continue to be dangerous and especially in restaurants and workout facilities.
Also new, is the B.C. government is suspending the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for at least the next few days for people aged 55 and younger, while Health Canada investigates isolated cases of adverse effects in people who have received that vaccine. Those adverse effects have commonly been blood clots.
Today, Henry announced 2,518 new COVID-19 cases over the past three days, which includes 936 on Saturday, 805 on Sunday and 774 new cases today. Six deaths were also reported in the past three days.
Of those cases over the past three days, 156 were in Interior Health. Another 1,280 were in Fraser Health, 816 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 142 in Island Health and 121 in Northern Health.
There were also 329 new variant of concern cases on the weekend, which makes 2,233 total variant cases in B.C. Of those, 413 variant cases are active, which is almost double the number of active variant cases from just three days ago.
Health Minister Adrian Dix says the test-positivity rate for COVID-19 has been 9.6 per cent in the past seven days, compared to between five and six per cent in weeks prior. He says that shows the virus is spreading more rapidly in communities.
There are 299 people in hospital with the virus and 79 people in critical care.
Meanwhile, just over 699,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered across B.C.
