Dr. Bonnie Henry April 28, 2020.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/BC Government
April 28, 2020 - 3:55 PM
“What you do does, and will continue to make a difference in the days and weeks ahead.”
That’s the message provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry offered today, April 28, as the COVID-19 style of living carried on into another week, and an exit strategy from current conditions remained unclear to the general public.
“We look forward to sharing more details around some of the modelling that we're using, and the details of our plans for going forward in the coming days,” Dr. Henry said.
“For now, we need to continue to hold this line, and to continue to be kind to each other, to become and to stay safe.”
There were 55 new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in British Columbia in the last 24 hours, raising the total of positive diagnoses to 2,053.
Diagnosed cases include 803 people in Vancouver Coastal Health region, 918 now in the Fraser Health region, 119 on Vancouver Island Health region, 168, people in Interior health region, and 45 people in Northern Health.
The majority of cases today, come from the ongoing investigations in two poultry producing plants including 46 cases now associated with Superior Poultry and 34 cases related to United Poultry. An additional two people who have been identified inmates at the mission. Federal Correctional Facility in the Fraser health region, bringing the total there to 120 inmates and 12 staff.
There are 94 people who are in the hospital right now in B.C., and of those 37 are in critical care ICU.
Of those, 1,231 people who have recovered from COVID-19. There were also two more deaths, one of which was in Interior Health.
Further information on where that was, what community they were from and whether they were attached to a known outbreak was unknown during the press conference. Interior Health later reported that the death was of a man in his 70s who died on April 27 following an admission to hospital in early April.
Dr. Henry had earlier mentioned that she wanted to see two incubation periods pass before making the call to ease restrictions, which prompted a question about whether the 55 new diagnoses, largely from poultry plants, are a concern and set that plan back.
“It doesn't set us back, necessarily, but it is one of the indicators that we are watching very carefully, that we're ready to get to that place where we can start lifting restrictions and having more contact with, of course, the core fundamentals of the social distancing, hand hygiene and the absolutely staying away and staying home when you're sick.”
“With this pandemic, our number one focus has been on protecting the health of everybody here in B.C.,” Dr. Henry said. “Every decision, every order that we've done, every restriction is based on that risk assessment that we have been doing. And I'm focused on breaking those chains of transmission of COVID-19 in our families in our communities.”
Henry said that she recognizes that the actions the province has taken have significant social financial emotional and health impacts on everyone.
“We've been trying to use the data and the science that we have to find that delicate balance of making sure we have just enough restriction that we can control this virus enough that we can continue to function as a community,” she said.
“And we've seen that delicate balance and now we're at that point where we need to find how do we translate that into our B.C. plan for our new normal coming in the coming weeks and months. It continues to be a whole of government approach here in British Columbia.”
Dr. Henry said that she is looking at mid to end-of May to loosen some restrictions.
-This story was updated with information from Interior Health at 4:21 p.m.
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