Cases, vaccinations remain modest in B.C.

Fifty-six new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed between Thursday and Friday in the Interior Health region.

They were among the 471 new cases reported across B.C. by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.

In the past week, new case counts in IH have consistently been below the average of about 100 a day that were being recorded in January. A downward trend has also been observed across B.C.

The pace of vaccinations has slowed considerably, with just under 140,000 people getting their first of two necessary shots, with interruptions in the delivery system.

“We need to buy ourselves some time,” Henry and Dix said. “Time to get our immunization program back up to speed as vaccine supply is restored and scaled up, and time to understand whether and how the variants of concern will affect transmission in our communities.”

There are currently 4,423 active cases of COVID-19 in B.C., with 253 people being treated for the disease in hospital. The rest are recovering at home in selfisolation.

Six new deaths due to COVID-19 were reported Friday, bringing the number of fatalities 1,246 since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020.