Interior Health region is bending the curve on COVID-19

Every part of the Interior Health region has now joined Vancouver Island in having the lowest per-capita rate of COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks.

For much of the pandemic, the Island has seen less than 10 cases per 100,000 population in any two-week period but parts of the Interior have jumped into the 10 to 20 range.

B.C. Centre for Disease Control posts maps each week showing the number of cases in each Health Service Delivery Area in the previous two weeks.

Last week’s map showed all of the Interior Health region in the 10 to 20 range except for the Okanagan.

READ MORE: Okanagan keeps COVID-19 levels under control in latest report, while most of B.C. sees increases

As of yesterday, Oct. 1, all four Interior regions showed under 10 cases per 100,000 for the past two weeks.

There were 12 new cases in the Thompson Cariboo Shuswap, 15 in the Okanagan and nine in the Kootenays.

Since the pandemic began in January, the Kootenays and southern Vancouver Island have had the lowest rates of transmission at less than 50 cases per 100,000.

The rest of the Interior region was between 50 and 100 cases.

Throughout the pandemic the subregions of Fraser South, Vancouver and North Shore/Coast Garibaldi have experienced the highest level of contagion, now with more than 200 cases per 100,000 population.

That holds true for the last two weeks as well as those three subregions each recorded more than 30 cases per 100,000 population.

The Northern Health region has also shown a high rate of cases in the past two weeks with between 20 and 30 per 100,000 for the entire region.

Hardest hit since January has been the Northeast region, essentially Fort St. John and Dawson Creek, with 150 to 200 cases per 100,000 population, although that’s a total of only 134 cases since January.


To contact a reporter for this story, email Rob Munro or call 250-808-0143 or email the editor. You can also submitphotos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

Join the Conversation!

Want to share your thoughts, add context, or connect with others in your community?

Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics