B.C.’s daily COVID-19 cases count jumped to 622 Thursday, as provincial health officials began accelerating their age-based mass vaccination plan and prepared to add thousands of front-line workers to the immunization program.
The 24 hours up to March 18 saw the largest case count of the week, after 491 for Sunday, 460 Monday, 556 Tuesday and 498 on Wednesday. There were eight coronavirus-related deaths reported Thursday, and for the third straight day, no new outbreaks declared in senior care or acute-care facilities.
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B.C. now expects to have vaccine for every adult by the end of June. Phone numbers and information on making appointments for age-based vaccination can be found here.
“Since we last reported, we have had 184 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 317 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 35 in the Island Health region, 30 in the Interior Health region, 54 in the Northern Health region and two new cases of people who reside outside of Canada,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said in a statement March 18.
“There have been 136 new confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern in our province, for a total of 1,132 cases. Of the total cases, 143 are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 1,040 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant, 41 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant and 51 cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant.
“To date, 465,584 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-SII COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C., 87,120 of which are second doses. Vaccine appointment bookings are open for people over 81 today and for people 80 and older tomorrow, along with Indigenous peoples over 65.”
@tomfletcherbc
tfletcher@blackpress.ca
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