B.C.'s number of new daily COVID-19 infections has bounced back into the 20s after a one-day reprieve yesterday, when only 13 new cases of the deadly virus were discovered in the province.
Provincial health officer Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix announced July 15 that there were 21 new cases in the past 24 hours, including two cases that they call "epi-linked," or presumed cases that have not been proven through testing but are being treated as official cases.
The province has now recorded 3,149 cases since the novel coronavirus first appeared in B.C. in late January.
More than 87.4% of those infected, or 2,753 people, have recovered. Of those who haven't, 189 people have died and 207 people are actively fighting the virus. Only 14 people are hospitalized, with five of those in intensive care units. The rest are self-isolating at home. There were no new deaths recorded in the past 24 hours.
Recording at least 20 new COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period has become common in B.C., and Henry said yesterday that she found that number "distressing," even though, she added, the good news is that the province knows where the clusters of infection are, many of the infections are linked and the number is not really that large given the province's population of more than five million residents.
The numbers in the past week were:
• 20 new cases on July 9;
• 25 new cases on July 10;
• 21 new cases on July 11;
• 20 new cases on July 12;
• 21 new cases on July 13;
• 13 new cases on July 14; and now
• 21 new cases on July 15.
In June, the number of daily new cases many times was in the single digits.
"There is one active community outbreak, in addition to several community exposure events," Henry and Dix said. "There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks."
Two seniors' long-term care facilities have active outbreaks: Holy Family Hospital long-term care facility and Maple Hill long-term care facility. There also remains an outbreak at Mission Memorial Hospital, which spawned the outbreak at Maple Hill, when infected patients were transferred from the hospital.
The breakdown of all COVID-19 infections by health region is:
• 1,023 in Vancouver Coastal Health;
• 1,659 in Fraser Health;
• 135 in Island Health;
• 216 in Interior Health;
• 65 in Northern Health; and
• 51 people who reside outside Canada.
