-With Files from Wendy Gray
In BC’s latest Covid-19 briefing, 76 new Covid-19 cases were confirmed in the province, along with one death.
BC’s case count has now jumped to 424, with the majority of the cases (230) located in the Vancouver Coastal Health Region, according to Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.
The latest death was confirmed to be a resident of the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver.
“This is not only confined to our hospitals, to our healthcare sector. It is also in our communities. The actions we are taking today make a difference in how we can transfer this disease to others,” said Dr. Henry.
Nine of BC’s ten deaths were Lynn Valley residents.
One of the new cases is also associated with Lynn Valley.
Dr. Henry called for personal service businesses like tattoo and massage parlors and salons, to close.
“As these require direct personal contact with other people, and that is impossible to deliver while maintaining appropriate distance,” she explained.
“I know most of these businesses have closed, but it has come to my attention that there is still confusion out there on whether they should be open or not.”
Due to the incubation period being up to 14 days, Dr. Henry noted it is important to track the ‘onset of illness’, or when people’s symptoms begin.
“That helps us understand where their exposure might have been,” she said.
“We have meticulously tracked where they might have been in those 14 days, and determined if there were other people that were exposed. We keep those people in isolation to see if they develop symptoms so that if and when they do develop symptoms they are not passing it on to others.”
Henry added the onset of illness curve will start to see a decrease if the measures British Columbians are taking around social distancing are effective.
“We talk about flattening the curve, it’s not necessarily the tests per day that is important. It’s the number of people getting infected.”
She also talked about the demographics of patients and how testing is conducted.
“Because we now know a lot more about COVID-19, our testing strategy has evolved to focus on clusters and outbreaks, patients in hospital and health-care workers.”
“Here in B.C., 55% of all positive cases are female. This is because we have seen younger, female health-care workers with the virus – mainly related to the Lynn Valley Care Centre and other long-term care outbreaks,” explained Henry.
Additionally, at least 20 cases in the province are now linked to the Pacific Dental Conference that occurred March 5-7 in Vancouver.
Notice was put out to all attendees requiring them to self-isolate, and most of the new linked cases were able to quarantine before their symptoms started.
As of today (March 21), 6 people have recovered from the virus in BC.
View tables of epidemic curve and age distribution:Â
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