VICTORIA -- Two more people have died from COVID-19 in British Columbia, and 25 more people have been infected with the virus, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced Thursday.
The two recent deaths – one in a long-term care home and one in a Vancouver-area hospital – bring B.C.’s death toll from the novel coronavirus to 111.
The 25 new cases announced Thursday bring the total number of cases in the province to 2,112.
Health officials have now detected 120 cases of the virus in the Island Health region, 815 cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and 961 cases in the Fraser Health region.
Elsewhere in B.C., there have been 170 COVID-19 cases in the Interior and 46 in the province’s north.
There are currently 24 active outbreaks of the virus in B.C.
As of Thursday, 82 people are in hospital with COVID-19, with 30 of them in critical care or intensive care.
Henry reiterated that B.C. will begin to reopen to businesses and social gatherings slowly over the coming months.
“We’re not going to have large groups gathering together, we’re not going to be having indoor parties in this coming summer,” the provincial health officer warned. “It’s going to be a challenge for us.”
B.C. Health Minister Adran Dix said officials are proposing "a very methodical process" to reopening the province as new cases of COVID-19 start to decline.
“In the new normal, we have to do some things differently from the way they were done before," Dix said. "Not going to work, not going to school, not visiting our loved ones when we’re sick is high on that list."
A total of 1,322 people have fully recovered from the virus in the province.
