Surrey,B.C.
Image Credit: Wikimediacommons
August 17, 2020 - 5:30 AM
The Fraser Health region has been hit hardest by COVID-19 throughout the pandemic.
It’s the province’s largest health region with about 1.8 million residents and straddles both sides of the Fraser River in the Lower Mainland.
From July 10 to 23 it recorded a mere 58 cases per in the Fraser South part of the region. That compared to 107 for the Okanagan during that same time period.
That was at the height of the community exposure events caused by parties in Kelowna.
READ MORE: BCCDC map shows Okanagan as a hotspot for COVID-19
That trend has reversed for the more recent July 31 to Aug. 13 time period where the number of cases jumped to 205 in Fraser South compared to 21 in the Okanagan.
The Thompson region had two cases in the earlier time period and three in the last two weeks.
Just as the spike in the Okanagan happened because of young people partying, the same seems to be the case in the Lower Mainland. Fraser Health identified two party places on its website where it has not been able to contact everyone in attendance.
Those included the Hookah Lounge and Royal Beauty Supply in Surrey from July 31 to Aug. 2. The Royal Beauty Supply location was the site of the Royal Jerk Spot Weekend Summer Fest Day and Night Rave.
Dates and times can be found here.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, in a recent COVID-19 update, said 45 or 46 cases of COVID-19 originated from one party and spread to other groups.
There were 163 new cases reported in B.C. from Aug. 12 and 13 with almost half (75) of them being in the Fraser Health region. No details were given about where in the region those cases were but Dr. Henry did note that people may live in one area, work in another and seek out entertainment elsewhere.
There were another 74 new cases in the Vancouver Coastal region over the past few days.
People in Kelowna seem to have learned their lesson from the events in early July since the Interior Health region as a whole has averaged only 1.5 cases a day over the past six days. That's a total of nine cases and three are staff at the Okanagan Correctional Centre in Oliver.
Overall, the Fraser Health region has recorded 2,242, or more than half, of B.C.'s 4,229 COVID-19 cases. There have been 398 cases in the Interior Health region.
Image Credit: Submitted/B.C. Centre for Disease Control
— This story was corrected at 10:34 a.m. Monday, Sept. 21, 2020 to fix incorrect data.
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