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Just one North Okanagan-Shuswap health area sees rise in new COVID-19 cases

Latest weekly data available shows Enderby with small increase, Salmon Arm holding steady
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Weekly COVID-19 data for April 11 to 17, 2021 on new cases reported in North Okanagan-Shuswap health areas show Vernon, Armstrong and Revelstoke going down, Salmon Arm holding steady and Enderby with small increase. (British Columbia Centre for Disease Control image)

Just one health area in the North Okanagan-Shuswap saw a rise in weekly COVID-19 cases from April 11 to 17.

Bucking the trend in other parts of the region, Enderby was the lone area out of five that saw a slight rise in new cases during the latest time period released by the BC Centre for Disease Control.

Enderby, which Interior Health announced April 19 would be getting its own clinic in May, tallied six new cases from April 11 to 17, up from two new cases the week before. The week before that, cases were at a high of 11. (Go to Interior Health’s ‘Taking a Whole Community Approach’ page and scroll down to the ‘Communities Eligible for Community Specific Clinics’ tab for details on the clinic.)

Interior Health explained that community-specific clinics are for those places with small populations and barriers – such as long-distance travel – to accessing larger immunization clinics.

Salmon Arm was the lone health area that saw neither an increase nor a decrease in new weekly cases. Both from April 11 to 17 and the week previous, the total was 13.

Numbers of new cases in all the other health areas in the region went down. Vernon dropped from 56 new cases the week before to 41 from the 11th to 17th.

Read more: Increased COVID-19 activity brings vaccine clinic to Enderby

Read more: 54 more cases of COVID-19 in Interior Health

The Armstrong area decreased from six to two.

Revelstoke made its way out of the ‘high’ rate zone of 21 the week before with a latest number of 11 new cases.

To the west, Kamloops has seen its share of ups and downs. During the most recent week of April 11 to 17, new cases were down to 44 from 96. The week before that, 48 new cases were reported.

In the Central Okanagan, which includes Kelowna, numbers decreased from 288 to 242.

Maps and data can be found at the BCCDC website at http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/data and scrolling down to the Cases by Local Health Areas map.

The Salmon Arm numbers include Sicamous, Malakwa, Sorrento, Tappen and Falkland, while Vernon’s encompass Coldstream, Lumby and Cherryville. The Enderby health area includes Grindrod, Mara and Kingfisher, while Armstrong’s includes Spallumcheen.



marthawickett@saobserver.net
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Martha Wickett

About the Author: Martha Wickett

came to Salmon Arm in May of 2004 to work at the Observer. I was looking for a change from the hustle and bustle of the Lower Mainland, where I had spent more than a decade working in community newspapers.
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