FILE. B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix looks on as provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry provides an update on COVID-19 on July 6, 2020.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Province of B.C.

B.C. health officials announced 542 new cases of COVID-19 today, including 43 from the Interior Health region, for a total of 81,909 since the pandemic began.

There are 4,654 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 246 individuals are currently hospitalized, 64 of whom are in intensive care. Seven more people died  overnight, raising the death toll to 1,372.

There have been 18 new confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern in our province, for a total of 200 cases. Of the total cases, 11 are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 176 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant and 24 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant.

Also 289,809 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C., 86,616 of which are second doses.

READ MORE: Vaccine panel recommends going up to 4 months between doses of COVID-19 shots

"Our goal is to protect as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, through the available COVID-19 vaccines. With a single primer dose, these vaccines are helping to stop outbreaks and reduce serious illness and death," provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a joint statement issued today, March 3.

"Setting the second booster dose at 16 weeks allows us to expand the number of people who will have access to these safe and effective vaccines, and may provide more durable and longer-lasting protection. We are pleased to see that today, the National Advisory Council on Immunization, as well as Canada's Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health, have endorsed this approach."

Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization said today the maximum interval between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should increase from three weeks to four months, in order to increase the number of Canadians being vaccinated, "in the context of limited COVID-19 vaccine supply."

Prior to today's recommendation, NACI had said that the maximum interval between the first and second shots of the Moderna vaccine should be four weeks, the interval for the Pfizer-BioNTech product should be three weeks and the interval for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine should be 12 weeks.

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