After a couple days of declining COVID case numbers in B.C. a new record high was set in the last 24 hours with 2,944 new cases.

That’s eclipses the previous high of 2,552 cases on Christmas Day but the real number may be more than 10,000.

“On average, there’s probably three to four times the number of people who truly have COVID than are in our surveillance numbers on a daily basis,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said during a news briefing today, Dec. 29. “That is something we’ve seen throughout this pandemic.”

She said that people with mild symptoms simply need to stay home for seven days, if they’re fully vaccinated, and don’t need to be tested. Others are getting rapid test kits that they can use at home and don’t necessarily report to health authorities.

Seventy to 80% of the cases are probably the Omicron variant, she said.

There are now a record 16,014 active cases in B.C. with 1,576 in the Interior Health region.

That has overwhelmed contact tracers so Dr. Henry advised infected people to inform their contacts themselves.

Of the 2,944 new cases, 1,591 were in the Fraser Health region, 571 in Vancouver Coastal, 374 in Interior Health, 309 on Vancouver Island and 99 in Northern Health.

The 374 cases in Interior Health is just shy of the previous high for a single day set on Aug. 13 when 376 cases were recorded.

There were five more deaths since Dec. 24, with one in the Interior Health region, for a total of 2,419 people who have died of COVID in B.C.

Despite the sharp increase in COVID cases, the hospitalization rate remains relatively low with 206 people in hospital, 66 of whom are in intensive care.

Vaccination rates have increased slightly with 91.9% of B.C. residents over the age of 12 receiving one dose, 89.1% have two doses and 18.5% have three.

In the week of Dec. 21 to 27, 14.5% of new cases were in unvaccinated people, 1.4% were partially vaccinated and 84.1% were fully vaccinated.

In the two weeks from Dec. 14 to 27, 57.6% of those hospitalized were not vaccinated, none were partially vaccinated and 42.4% were fully vaccinated.

— This story was updated at 9:45 a.m. on Dec. 30, 2021 to add additional details.

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