The Central Okanagan is driving up Interior Health’s COVID-19 count

The Central Okanagan has the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases throughout Interior Health. 

It has recorded 409 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in January. That's 53 per cent of the 768 cases recorded in the entire Interior Health region so far this year.

The Greater Victoria/Saanich Peninsula area, by comparison, has a far greater population but recorded only 78 cases.

Those numbers come from an updated map on the B.C. Centre for Disease Control website that breaks down cases by Local Health Areas.

Regular weekly updates just show, for example, the entire Okanagan. These monthly updates break that down into smaller areas like the Central Okanagan, Vernon, Summerland, Penticton, and more.

Of the 768 COVID-19 cases recorded in the Interior Health Region since January, Kamloops ranked second with 111 cases, although that includes Sun Peaks, Barriere and Logan Lake.

Vernon had 43 cases, Penticton 27 and all the Kootenay regions combined had 80.

The Okanagan accounted for about 65 per cent of all cases in the Interior Health region so far this year but that ratio increased to almost 70 per cent over the past two weeks with 144 of the Interior Health region’s 206 new cases.

COVID-19 cases in the Interior Health region from January to the end of October by select local health areas:

• 409 – Central Okanagan
• 111 – Kamloops
• 43 – Vernon
• 27 – Penticton
• 27 – Merritt
• 13 – Cariboo Chilcotin
• 12 – 100 Mile House
• 12 – South Okanagan
• 12 – Windemere
• 12 – Nelson
• 11 – Cranbrook
• 10 – Fernie
• 10 – Castlegar
• 10 – Trail
• 9 – Salmon Arm
• 5 – Armstrong

Of course, the number of cases in the Interior Health region doesn’t come close to matching places like Surrey which, on its own, had 3,993 people test positive for COVID-19 since January.

The City of Vancouver was not far behind with 3,444 cases.

The two cities combined for about half the cases in B.C.

Case numbers for select other B.C. local health regions:

• 880 – Abbotsford
• 857 – Burnaby
• 783 – Tri-Cities
• 554 – North Vancouver
• 472 – Langley
• 428 – Delta
• 411 – Richmond
• 298 – South Surrey/White Rock
• 285 – Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows
• 210 – Mission
• 206 – West Vancouver
• 105 – Peace River North
• 99 – Prince George
• 63 – Greater Victoria

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