There are 34 new cases of COVID-19 being reported today in B.C., including 13 more cases in the Interior Health region.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says at least 70 cases are linked to downtown Kelowna, and she says about 1,000 people are self-isolating who may have been exposed there.

Last week, Henry said health officials were trying to track down “hundreds” of people who may have been exposed in that outbreak.

“Contact tracing three or four people is much easier and faster than trying to reach 20 or 30 people for every case that has come up. And that is the situation that we have found ourselves in, in the past few weeks. With each additional person, the time it takes us to find them, the potential for them to develop symptoms and pass it on to others is greater. Putting more people at risk,” Henry says.

“As we all know, the BC COVID-19 curve is trending in a direction we do not want to go, and that is upwards. We all need to take a step back and look at the things we need to do to bend our curve back down, where we need to keep it.”

There are now 285 active cases of COVID-19 across B.C, which is a 38-per-cent increase compared to a week ago, when there were 207 active cases.

The good is for a ninth straight day, nobody in B.C. has died from COVID-19. There are 17 people in hospital with the virus and three people in intensive care.

More to come.