Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry provides an update on COVID-19 from Victoria on Dec. 2, 2020.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Province of B.C.

Another 514 B.C. residents tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, including 71 in the Interior Health region.

There were five more deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 1,189.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry marked the one year anniversary of the first COVID-19 case being announced in B.C. by saying that there are now 66,779 residents who have tested positive.

At the same time, she said during a news briefing today, Jan. 29, the vaccine supply has slowed as there were no Pfizer doses delivered this week and there will be limited numbers delivered in the next two weeks. She learned today that the number of Moderna doses will be down 20 per cent next week from what was expected.

That’s about 6,000 doses and Dr. Henry has been given assurances that those doses will be made up later.

“We will be getting back on track,” Dr. Henry said. “It will be slow, and slower than we wanted, but I’m confident we can meet our Phase 1 and Phase 2 targets as quickly as we can.”

She noted it’s challenging and frustrating to deal with these unexpected shortfalls.

Phase 1 has now achieved its goal of all residents of long-term care homes and staff getting at least one dose of the vaccine. Phase 2 will include more health care workers and people over the age of 80 living in the community. Phase 3 will see those under 80 starting to get vaccinated by age cohorts with the oldest being vaccinated first.

Dr. Henry still hopes to move to Phase 3 in April.

She also noted that, it has been a tough year dealing with COVID, but people are resilient and have adjusted well and, for the most part, showed their better selves.

“We have learned so much in this year,” Dr. Henry said. “We have learned that we are a global community in ways we may not have appreciated before. We’ve learned what happens in a remote village in China affects us and we have learned what happens in a Belgian factory affects us.”

The Pfizer vaccine is made in Belgian.

Of the 514 new cases in B.C., 223 were in the Fraser Health region, 134 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 29 in the Vancouver Island Health region and 71 in the Northern Health region.

There are 4,587 active cases in B.C. with 292 people in hospital, 74 of whom are in intensive care.

There have been 125,979 people who have received one dose of a vaccine and 4,262 have been given a second dose.

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