Four new COVID-19 cases in Interior Health region

There have been four new COVID-19 cases recorded in the Interior Health region in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 216.

That follows on recent news that eight people who had been partying in Kelowna around July 1 were COVID-19 positive.

There was no mention of whether there was any connection between those events and today’s, July 15, increased numbers in a joint news release from Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix.

READ MORE: Interior Health urges individuals to self-isolate after potential exposure to COVID-19 at Kelowna resort, B&B

"We are concerned about the increase in new cases in recent days as COVID-19 continues to silently circulate in our communities,” the release states. "While early on, many of our long-term care and assisted living facilities were impacted, most of the new cases are in the broader community.

"Here in British Columbia, as we spend more time with others, we need to find our balance with COVID-19. We need to minimize the number of cases, manage new cases as they emerge and modify our activities accordingly. To do this, we all have to do our part by continuing to use our layers of protection and following our rules for safe social interactions.”

There were 21 new cases of COVID-19 in B.C. in the last 24 hours, bringing the provincial total to 3,149.

There were no new deaths, which means 189 people have died of COVID-19 so far during the pandemic.

There have been 1,659 cases in the Fraser Health region, 1,023 in Vancouver Coastal, 135 on Vancouver Island, 65 in the Northern Health region and 51 foreign visitors.

So far, 2,763 people have recovered and there are 207 active cases. Of those, 14 are in hospital and five are in intensive care.

– This story was corrected at 7:34 a.m., July 16, 2020 to correct the number of cases recorded in the last 24 hours from seven to four based on an error by iNFOnews.ca.

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