VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The ban on social gatherings will continue into next month as the provincial health officer says the COVID-19 curve is trending upwards.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry extended the current health orders to Feb. 5 at midnight saying the number of new COVID-19 cases in the province indicates people made their own exceptions to the measures over the holidays.
“It may seem inconsequential, it may not have been done with the understanding of the impact it could have,” she said.
Q- are restrictions on social gatherings not just punishing those who follow the rules vs those who are not?
DBH: it’s frustrating – most are doing their best – we convince ourselves: it’s just one little thing – doesn’t matter.
Some are tragic mistakes#bcpoli @NEWS1130 #covid19— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) January 8, 2021
In addition to not socializing with people outside one’s immediate household, the renewed order restricts all in-person events and gatherings, including in-person religious services.
RELATED: B.C. should extend COVID-19 restriction to control variant virus spread: expert
“This virus doesn’t know that we haven’t seen our friends in months. It doesn’t know that it’s our grandmother’s birthday,” she added. “This is our riskiest time right now. We cannot let our guard as vaccine is just beginning. This is our winter, but we know spring will come.”
To date, 41,064 people have been immunized against COVID-19.
Deaths in B.C. reached 920 Thursday after eight more people lost their lives to the virus.
Two more people have tested positive for the U.K. virus mutation, who are both household contacts of the first infected person. That person travelled from the U.K. to Vancouver Island in December.
“We do not believe that anybody else is at risk of this variant,” Henry said, adding testing and monitoring continues.
BC's #covid19 update Jan 7
Cases up in call regions
Curve bending up not down
LTC active cases going up – consistently 1400+ residents, 700+ staff, for weeks
The consequences of ppl getting together during holidays seen now
Next 4 weeks vital to stemming spread#bcpoli @news1130 https://t.co/ug3GiNm9W5 pic.twitter.com/8DXMTU8zN0— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) January 7, 2021
‘Every case still counted’ in new reporting system
The extended orders come as Henry details changes to how cases are reported that will show daily infections higher for a few days, including Thursday when she announced 761 new cases.
Since updated numbers date back to last January, case counts this week will seem to fluctuate.
Henry says data reporting will be improving based on lab result dates rather than the date the information is reported to the BC Centre for Disease Control.
“Our new system is going to be based on automatically reporting lab-confirmed cases from the previous day,” she said.
DBH – making data changes to daily case info. Until now it used report date process:
lab–> Helath authority —> BCCDC –>compiled data
Will now be on lab confirmed date:
lab —> BCCDC.
Will remove a day or so lag.
Tables adusted back to Jan 1.#bcpoli @NEWS1130— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) January 7, 2021
By changing the system to have the lab directly report to the BCCDC and health authorities, it will remove a day or so of lag.
She explains the case counts are a “snapshot in time” and the rolling averages help understand trends in the pandemic.
“Importantly, what remains the same is every case is still counted, and every person who’s positive is still notified as soon as possible, and contact tracing and follow up, particularly, to identify new clusters and outbreaks continues as usual,” Henry said.
The province is also providing data for long-term care and assisted living outbreaks. Going forward, the data will be released weekly.
The province now providing data regarding LTC/assissted living outbreaks in one place. This will be released weekly Health min @adriandix says (for now not online just via media — I will add the outbreaks that are over later).#bcpoli @NEWS1130 #covid19 pic.twitter.com/nFPIR69nyu
— LizaYuzda (@LizaYuzda) January 7, 2021
