Central Okanagan’s COVID-19 curve heading back up

After showing a steady decline in new COVID-19 cases for some weeks now, the Central Okanagan is one of the few areas in the Interior Health region showing an increase.

From Jan. 24-30, the most recent week for which data is available from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the Central Okanagan recorded 77 new cases of COVID-19. That’s up from 65 the week before but far below the 200 to 300 new cases recorded in November and December.

Throughout the pandemic, the Central Okanagan has usually recorded more than half of the new cases in the Interior Health region but now it’s only 16 per cent of the 467 cases in the region.

In the previous week (Jan. 17-23) Interior Health region recorded 558 new cases.

Cases in most other Interior Health region communities fell with key exceptions being Keremeos going from zero to six, Merritt climbing to 24 from 15 and Penticton to 11 cases, up by two from the week before.

Case counts in Kamloops dropped to 117 from 124 and Vernon went down to 26 from 55.

Hot spots like the Cariboo-Chilcotin dropped to 72 new cases from 120 the week before while Fernie dropped to 29 cases from 44.

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