Another six British Columbians with COVID-19 died in the past day, raising the province's pandemic death toll to 2,996.
Serious infections include 276 people in hospital – up three from yesterday – with 43 of those sick enough to be in intensive care units (ICUs), which is three fewer than yesterday.
These numbers are far below the province's record 1,048 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Jan. 31, and the record of 178 COVID-19 patients in ICUs, slightly more than 11 months ago, on April 29.
Officials detected 291 new infections in the past day.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, however, has told vaccinated people with mild symptoms to not get tested so as to free up tests for those who are more vulnerable. As a result she has called the daily case counts "not accurate."
The B.C. government on Feb. 10 stopped providing daily data updates for active COVID-19 infections for that reason.
Data provided yesterday, however, on the provincial government's app, shows that the province had 42,405 active COVID-19 infections.
That information from the BC Centre for Disease Control is significantly higher than any total provided before the province stopped providing daily data. Before Feb. 10, the most known COVID-19 infections that were active at the same time in B.C. was on Jan. 18, when there were 37,224 such infections.
In total, the province knows of 356,252 COVID-19 infections since the first case was detected in January 2020.
Some good news is that there are no new known outbreaks in health-care facilities or seniors' homes. That leaves seven active outbreaks.
Vaccinations help limit the spread of the disease that spawned a global pandemic, and help reduce the seriousness of infections that do occur.
The vast majority of British Columbians are already vaccinated, and new vaccinations are ongoing. In the past day, 293 residents received their first dose of vaccine, while 836 received their second doses, and 1,788 received third doses of vaccine.
In total, 4,528,240 eligible B.C. residents have had at least one dose of vaccine, while 4,351,830 are considered fully vaccinated with two doses, and 2,665,395 have had three doses.
Recent Statistics Canada 2021 census data counted 5,000,879 residents in B.C.
Glacier Media's calculation therefore is that more than 90.5 per cent of B.C.'s total population has had at least one dose of vaccine, and more than 87% per cent of the province's total population has had two doses. Nearly 53.3 per cent have had their third, or booster doses. •
