COVID easing in B.C. but not in Interior Health

As the number and severity of COVID cases continues to decrease in B.C., the Interior Health region is recording more than its share of cases and hospitalizations.

Interior Health has 14% of the province’s population but recorded 41% of its new cases over the past 24 hours. It also has 21% of hospitalizations and 25% of people in intensive care units with COVID.

In the last 24 hours, there were 466 new COVID cases recorded in B.C. with 193 in Interior Health, according to a Ministry of Health news release issued today, March 1.

There were 101 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 31 in Vancouver Coastal, 95 on Vancouver Island and 45 in the Northern Health region.

The real number of cases is estimated to be three to four times higher because many people infected with COVID are not getting tested or take rapid tests that are not recorded in these figures.

There were 523 people in hospital with a positive test for COVID today. As of yesterday, there were 114 in Interior Health hospitals.

There are 83 B.C. residents in intensive care today.

About half the of people in hospital with a COVID diagnosis were not in there because of COVID but were tested after going to hospital for things like surgery, delivering a baby or being admitted to a mental health unit.

There were no new deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, leaving the pandemic death toll at 2,873.

The vaccination rate for people over the age of 12 remained unchanged at 93.3%, as did the 90.7% with at least two doses and the 55.7% with three doses.

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