COVID numbers now increasing throughout the province, not just in Interior Health

There were 641 new COVID-19 cases recorded in B.C. in the last 24 hours.

While that’s not an unusual number in recent days, what is unusual is that it’s one of the few times, recently, when the number of cases in the Interior Health region haven’t made up the majority of new cases.

Still, there were 273 new cases in the Interior Health region, more than the 149 in Fraser Health and 125 in Vancouver Coastal, according to a Ministry of Health news release issued today, Aug. 24. There were only 53 on Vancouver Island, 39 in the Northern Health region and two cases detected in people who live outside of Canada.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced earlier today that masks will be mandatory in all indoor public spaces starting tomorrow.

READ MORE: Masks required for all indoor public spaces in B.C. starting tomorrow

Interior Health has 2,054 of the province’s 5,357 active cases. There are 138 people in hospital throughout B.C. with 78 of them being in intensive care units.

The vaccination rate is 83.3 per cent for those over the age of 12 and 75.1 per cent have received their second dose.

Starting on Sept. 13, B.C. residents will have to show proof of vaccination in order to get into public events, restaurants and other venues.

READ MORE: COVID-19 vaccination card coming to attend events, restaurants in B.C.


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Rob Munro

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