Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, and Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, today (Sept. 16) issued the following joint statement regarding updates on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) response in British Columbia.

Today, we announcing 122 new cases, including five epi-linked cases, for a total of 7,498 cases in British Columbia.

There are 1,614 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 2,966 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases and 5,646 people who tested positive have recovered.

Currently, 60 individuals are hospitalized with COVID-19, 23 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 2,660 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 3,835 in the Fraser Health region, 195 in the Island Health region, 485 in the Interior Health region, 237 in the Northern Health region and 85 cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

There have been no new COVID-19 related deaths, for a total of 219 deaths in British Columbia. We offer our condolences to everyone who has lost their loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks. In total, 11 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.

Alerts are posted on the BC Centre for Disease Control’s (BCCDC) website, as well as on health authorities’ websites, providing details on where the potential exposure occurred and what actions to take – whether you need to self-isolate or monitor for symptoms.

Beginning today, the BCCDC website will also link to regional health authorities’ school notification pages, providing the date and type of notification (outbreak, cluster or exposure) for impacted schools. Fraser Health’s school notification page is available now and the other regional health authorities will have theirs ready soon.

As we learn more and better understand where the risks exist, we will continue to adjust our COVID-19 approach and response in B.C. to protect those who are most vulnerable. This is our priority for not only COVID-19, but the second equally concerning pandemic of overdose deaths.

Today, a new provincial health officer order has been put in place to increase the number of health professionals authorized to provide safer alternatives to the toxic drug supply.

This new order is about connecting more people to treatment and doing all we can to save lives by supporting people who use drugs to do so safely.

As we work to support each other, one of the biggest concerns with COVID-19 is the unidentified spread of the virus in our communities. This is why getting tested as soon as you have symptoms is so important.

With the knowledge of new cases or clusters, public health teams can quickly complete contact tracing, notify those who may be exposed and more importantly, contain the further spread.

It doesn’t help to shame and blame those in our communities who have the virus, because it quite often discourages others from coming forward and getting tested, putting all of us at risk.

Rather, we need to show compassion and care, not judgment, when there is a new case in our community.

Large gatherings have been a steady source of transmission. However, many of the new cases we are seeing in the past weeks are from small gatherings where people see different groups of friends on different days – inadvertently spreading the virus to many people.

Let’s not forget that if we are close enough, doing enough and with enough different people, the likelihood of transmitting the virus significantly goes up. That is why it is so important to make our social interactions a ‘small and safe six,’ keeping to our immediate households and the same close friends only.

September is our month to get ready for the respiratory season, to hold steady with our layers of protection and go forward with the routines that will keep our communities and our loved ones safe.

Lead image: The entrance to a Cranbrook store. Carrie Schafer/e-KNOW photo

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