Dr. Bonnie Henry Aug. 24.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/BC Government
August 24, 2020 - 3:36 PM
There have been 269 new cases of COVID-19 in B.C. since Friday, the province's top doctor said today, Aug. 24.
That brings the total in British Columbia to 5,184 cases, 913 of which are active. There are also 18 people in hospital with the disease today, and five who are in critical care, Dr. Bonnie Henry said.
There was one more death in that period, raising the total since the start of the pandemic to 202.
The new figures represent a significant jump in caseload but one that Dr. Henry didn’t sound alarm bells over.
“Despite the recent outbreaks and clusters that we have seen in the past week, and the rising case numbers, we still have low undetected transmission in our province,” she said.
That means health officials are able to find people who may have been exposed and, she said, they want to keep it this way.
“As our summer continues and we look to the fall, it's about finding that balance, being able to live with this virus, but ensure that we are doing what we can to keep our society, our medical system and our economy going,” she said. “It also means, we all need to do our part to protect those people we know are more vulnerable to having severe illness or dying from COVID-19.”
Dr. Henry said health officials are monitoring the level of community spread, and currently there are 4,000 to 5,000 tests being conducted per day.
“Our (test-positive) rate remains relatively low, even though the testing is mostly focused on those people who have an exposure risk,” she said. “If we started to see that climb that would worry us as well.”
Right now, however, the infection rate is staying within “the range of where we need to be.”
Dr. Henry added that B.C.’s COVID-19 response is about all residents doing their part, and taking the right precautions based on their circumstances.
“It's how we've done this in B.C., by showing kindness and compassion, assuming the best and not the worst,” she said.
Dr. Henry added that while some have not paid heed to the personal responsibility model of stopping the spread, there are now enforcement rules for those who aren’t.
“The new enforcement rules are in place to shore up those gaps that have emerged,” she said. “We need to all continue to do the right thing from the get-go, so that we don't need to use the enforcement measures that we have.... for our use now.”
Today there are 1,651 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 2,739 people in the Fraser Health region, 166 people in the Vancouver Island health region, 425 people in Interior Health and 127 people in the Northern Health region. In addition there are 76 people who reside outside of Canada.
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