2nd wave rolling ashore in B.C.

A second wave of COVID-19 infections is underway, but cresting slowly in B.C., provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says.

A total of 499 infections — including 21 in the Interior Health region — were confirmed between Friday and Monday.

The tally included a one-day high for new infections, of 174, confirmed between Sunday and Monday. The previous one-day high was 165 in mid-September.

“One can say that we are in our second wave here of our COVID-19 storm in B.C.,” Henry said Monday. “There continues to be COVID-19 transmission in many parts of our province and we know that this is expected. This virus has not gone away, and it has shown us that is now quite able to hide and spread in our communities around the province.

“Encouragingly, we in B.C. are not seeing exponential growth. We do have more people in hospital than we did a few weeks ago, but that has also stabilized.

Since late July, the rate of COVID-19 infections in the Interior Health region has been considerably below transmission levels seen in Surrey, Delta, and other areas of Greater Vancouver.

In the IH region, 611 people have now tested positive for COVID-19. The number provincewide is 11,687. Almost 9,800 people have recovered; there are 1,639 active cases; and 67 people are in hospital, 19 of those in intensive care.

If the rate of transmission was the same in IH as it is across the rest of the province, there would be about 1,700 infections here, nearly three times more than have actually been confirmed.