BC COVID-19 Update – March 23, 2021

Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, and Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, have issued the following joint statement regarding updates on the COVID-19 response in British Columbia:

“Today, we are reporting 682 new cases, including 15 epi-linked cases, for a total of 93,253 cases in British Columbia.

“There are 5,409 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 9,488 people under active public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. A further 86,307 people who tested positive have recovered.

“Of the active cases, 314 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 83 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation.

“Since we last reported, we have had 229 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 333 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 19 in the Island Health region, 76 in the Interior Health region, 23 in the Northern Health region and two new cases of people who reside outside of Canada. Of note, 36 of the newly reported Interior Health cases are historic cases from 2020 identified through a data review.

“There have been 144 new confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern in our province, for a total of 1,510 cases. Of the total cases, 171 are active and the remaining people have recovered. This includes 1,357 cases of the B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant, 43 cases of the B.1.351 (South Africa) variant and 110 cases of the P.1 (Brazil) variant.

“There has been one new COVID-19 related death, for a total of 1,438 deaths in British Columbia.