Virus numbers drop
New cases of COVID-19 among Okanagan residents were down 88% last week from peak levels in early December.
A total of 71 people in the Valley tested positive for the disease between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18, newly released infection data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control shows.
That compares to the 597 Okanagan residents who tested positive for COVID-19 between in the week leading up to Dec. 3, 2020.
It’s been almost a steady decline since then, with new case numbers in the Okanagan going down in seven of the nine reporting periods.
The decline in new case counts in the
Okanagan has been steeper than the provincial average. Across B.C, new weekly cases fell 31% between early December and last week.
The data, released Friday by the BC CDC, reflects COVID-19 cases among the general population. But the drop in infections can be measured in other ways, as well.
For example, there are currently no COVID-19 potential exposure alerts for any school in the Kelowna area. Last December, there were scores of such alerts. There has been one alert about a confirmed COVID-19 case on a flight arriving or departing from Kelowna airport so far this month; in January, there were 14 such cases.
Popular Kelowna-based author Jack Whyte, whose 17 best-selling books of historical fiction have been translated into more than 20 languages, has died.
He was 80 years old.
"He dabbled in all sorts of things over the years and he was great at all of them," his step-daughter Holly Martin said Tuesday.
Whyte, who had been battling cancer, passed away Monday night at Kelowna Hospice House. A celebration of his life will be held later this year, Martin said.
Born in Scotland, Whyte moved to Canada in 1967 and had lived in Kelowna for the past 25 years.
He was the author of “A Dream of Eagles,” a series of historical novels set in post-Roman Britain centred around the legend of King Arthur. The series was published in many languages, including German, French, Russian, Spanish and Portugese.
Whyte also wrote “The Templar Trilogy” and “The Guardians of Scotland,” which are also multibook series.
By 2011, Whyte’s books had sold more than 1.25 million copies just in Canada.
He was also an actor, poet, singer, and orator, according to a biography
of Whyte on the website of Penguin Random House Canada, his long-time publisher.
In a 2018 interview with The Daily Courier (a publication for which he also contributed a regular column), Whyte reflected on his passion for research and what he believed were the reasons for his worldwide success as a writer of historical fiction.
“I’ve gone looking for legends and tried to strip away all the accumulated crap of the centuries and uncover what it was originally that made this story and these people so great,” he said.
In the interview, conducted after Whyte’s first battle with cancer, he said was looking forward to writing many more books: “Too many ideas,” he said. “Not enough time.”