Dr. Bonnie Henry says B.C. is bending the COVID-19 curve

While there have been 518 new cases of COVID-19 in B.C. in the last 24 hours, the curve of the pandemic’s upward movement is bending.

That’s some of the good news from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry during a media briefing today, Dec. 23.

“We have bent our curve slightly and we are perhaps on a downward trajectory,” Dr. Henry said. “But we have to be cautious. It will not take much to get us back into a dangerous level.”

The peak was reached in mid-November at 800 cases a day, after new restrictions on social interactions were put in place, but has slowly declined since then.

She said the rate of transmission has now dropped below one, meaning that for each person testing positive, on average, they infect only one other person or none at all. That’s the transmission ratio that’s essential to control the spread of COVID-19.

There have now been 48,027 people in B.C. who have been infected, including 3,410 in the Interior Health region which recorded 49 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours.

There were 19 more deaths in B.C., bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 796.

Of the new cases, 332 were in the Fraser Health region, 97 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, nine in the Vancouver Island Health region and 31 in the Northern Health region.

There are 9,137 active cases with 348 people in hospital.

To date, 5,603 people have been vaccinated throughout the province, including Dr. Henry.

B.C. has now received permission to move the Pfizer vaccine outside the initial storage facilities so it can go to other communities and into long-term care homes so residents can be vaccinated.

The Moderna vaccine has now been improved in Canada and will reach B.C. next week, she said.

It will take months to vaccinate everyone, so Dr. Henry cautioned people to keep their Christmas gatherings to a minimum and not to travel.

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.