B.C. reports 2,550 new COVID-19 cases over the weekend, Omicron update to be provided Tuesday

KAMLOOPS — COVID-19 cases continued to climb in B.C. over the weekend.

The province’s health ministry reports 2,550 new cases over the past three days (Dec. 18 and 20) with 268 of them in Interior Health.

Active cases spiked in the province to 5,435 (up by 1,122 since Friday) but decreased to 648 in Interior Health (down by 40). Of the provincial active cases, 185 patients are in hospital (down by six) with 77 of them in intensive care (up by three).

The three-day breakdown is as follows:

• Dec. 17 to 18: 911 new cases
• Dec. 18 to 19: 832 new cases
• Dec. 19 to 20: 807 new cases

An update on cases of the Omicron variant of concern will be provided in tomorrow’s COVID-19 pandemic update. On Friday, there were 302 total Omicron cases identified.

The province says it will outline additional COVID-19 measures during a media briefing on Tuesday (Dec. 21).

Elsewhere, there were 909 new cases in Vancouver Coastal Health (1,823 active), 877 in Fraser Health (1,707), 415 in Island Health (1,021), and 81 in Northern Health (236).

Three new deaths were reported in the last 72 hours, none in Interior Health, for a provincial total of 2,402.

There’s only one active healthcare facility outbreak in the province at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver.

As of Monday, 87.3 per cent (4,352,063) of eligible people five and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, while 82.6 per cent (4,118,432) have received their second.

Vaccine status

From Dec. 10 to 16, there were 3,721 new COVID-19 cases in B.C.

Of them, 2,255 were fully vaccinated (60.6 per cent), 1,397 were unvaccinated (37.5 per cent), and 69 were partially vaccinated (1.9 per cent). Per 100,000 population after adjusting for age, the unvaccinated accounted for 190.7, fully vaccinated 49.7, and partially vaccinated population 34.3 cases.

There were 154 total hospitalizations from Dec. 3 to 16.

Of them, 104 were unvaccinated (67.5 per cent), 44 were fully vaccinated (28.6 per cent), and six were partially vaccinated (3.9 per cent). Per 100,000 population after adjusting for age. The unvaccinated accounted for 23.8, partially vaccinated 4.9, and fully vaccinated 1.0 hospitalizations.