VANCOUVER British Columbia has lost another 74 lives to COVID-19 since Christmas Eve, health officials announced Tuesday in their first update in five days. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry also revealed 2,206 new coronavirus infections were recorded over the same period, including 447 from Christmas Day to Boxing Day. B.C. has now recorded 50,815 cases of COVID-19 and suffered 882 fatalities since the start of the pandemic. Henry, who choked up while delivering news of the latest deaths, pointed to the province s ongoing struggle to protect seniors in long-term care from the disease. Our condolences go out to all the families who are mourning their loss, to the care providers and to the communities who have lost loved ones, she said. We know that this is the most challenging time to deal with these issues, not only because of COVID but because of the time of year. We mourn with you and feel your loss intensely.
by Craig Takeuchi on December 29th, 2020 at 6:00 PM 1 of 2 2 of 2
The good news is that over the holiday weekend, new COVID-19 case counts in B.C. remained around 500 or less.
Unfortunately, there’s a catch: B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said at today’s B.C. COVID-19 briefing that she believes that part of the reason that numbers are down is because people haven t been testing as much over the holiday weekend.
She said testing has been reduced by as much as 50 percent in some places.
“Partly it’s people don’t want to be tested and have to isolate before this holiday, which is worrisome,” she said, “because we know that people are getting together some people and even it’s just your household, you may bring this into your household and spread it to them.”
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Here’s your daily update with everything you need to know on the novel coronavirus situation in B.C. for Dec. 29, 2020.
We’ll provide summaries of what’s going on in B.C. right here so you can get the latest news at a glance. This page will be updated regularly throughout the day, with developments added as they happen.
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