Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, and Stephen Brown, deputy minister of health, today (Oct. 1) issued the following joint statement regarding updates on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) response in British Columbia.

Today, we are announcing 82 new cases, including one epi-linked case, for a total of 9,220 cases in British Columbia.

There are 1,261 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 3,093 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and 7,695 people who tested positive have recovered.

Currently, 69 individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19, 19 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-isolation.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 3,360 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 4,712 in the Fraser Health region, 209 in the Island Health region, 535 in the Interior Health region, 317 in the Northern Health region and 87 cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

There has been one new COVID-19 related death, for a total of 235 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There has been one new health-care facility outbreak at the George Derby Centre long-term care facility in the Fraser Health region. In total, 15 long-term care or assisted-living facilities and three acute-care facilities have active outbreaks.

There have been no new community outbreaks, although there continue to be community exposure events around the province.

Public alerts and school notifications are posted on the BC Centre for Disease Control’s (BCCDC) website, and on all health authorities’ websites, providing details on where the potential exposure occurred and what actions to take – whether to self-isolate or monitor for symptoms.

As our understanding of COVID-19 has grown, so has our understanding of what safe activities we are all able to do.

Our daily lives may be quite different, but by so many people in B.C. doing their part – keeping our groups small, staying apart and staying safe – we have been able to expand those activities.

The result is that today many businesses are fully operating, students are in school and we are able to see a small number of family and friends.

The wall that protects these activities is made up of our layers of protection and safety basics – washing our hands, maintaining a safe physical distance from others, using a mask when that is difficult and always staying home when ill.

We are on the right track and we want to keep that wall strong. To do that, it is important that we continue to keep our groups small, stick with our ‘safe six,’ minimize our travel and keep our safety basics top of mind.

By supporting each other to do the right thing, by offering kindness and care to our friends and neighbours, we can protect our communities. Let’s keep going.

Lead image: A polite request at a hotel entrance. Carrie Schafer/e-KNOW photo

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