COVID rate high in Central Okanagan
The Central Okanagan has one of B.C.’s highest rates of COVID-19 infections, according to newlyreleased regional information on the spread of the coronavirus.
Total case numbers are higher only in Vancouver, Surrey, and Abbotsford.
“Virtually every part of our province has been touched by COVID-19, communities large and small and geographically dispersed,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Thursday.
Unlike other provinces and jurisdictions, B.C. has not previously provided regular updates on the number of infections in specific communities. Instead, the numbers were generally released only by health authority regions, each of which encompasses large areas of the province with hundreds of thousands of people.
Now, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control has released COVID-19 case numbers for local health areas, which are much smaller regions that are generally centred around.a municipality.
In the Central Okanagan, which includes Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, and Peachland, 209 people have been infected since the start of the pandemic.
In the Vernon area, 21 people have been infected. Five people have had COVID-19 in the Penticton area; six have had it in the areas around Oliver and Osoyoos; and two people in Summerland have been infected.
The highest number of infections is in Surrey, with 521 cases. Abbotsford has 454 infections, and Vancouver has 420 cases.
The geographically large but sparsely populated far northwest corner of B.C., which includes Prince Rupert and Stikine, has had no COVID-19 cases.
Data on infections within local health areas are current to the end of July. It will be updated only monthly, not daily, as is the case with infection numbers in the larger health authorities.
Asked why B.C. had not originally provided information on COVID-19 infections on a community-by-community basis, Henry said the numbers were initially so low it might have been possible for people to identify the patients, based on such things as who had recently taken a cruise ship or travelled internationally.
As case numbers have risen, there is less risk of patient identities becoming known, Henry said.
A number of large, private parties contributed to a surge of COVID-19 cases being confirmed in Kelowna in early July.
Since August, case numbers in the Interior Health region have fallen below the provincial average on a per capita basis.
No new cases of COVID-19 were reported in IH between Wednesday and Thursday, so the count remained at 429. Sixteen cases are considered active, with the patients recovering at home. No one is currently being treated for COVID-19 in IH hospitals.
Province-wide, 68 new cases were reported Thursday. One additional death was reported, making the total number of fatalities 204.
"There are 906 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 2,810 people who are under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases, and 4,253 people who tested positive have recovered,” said Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix in a joint statement.