VICTORIA -- Health officials have identified 19 more cases of COVID-19 on Vancouver Island.
The new cases are among 449 new cases found across B.C. on Thursday, bringing the provincial total to 72,305 cases since the pandemic began.
Nine more people in the province died of the disease over the past 24 hours, according to an update from provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.
There were no new deaths recorded on Vancouver Island, where the death toll remains at 20.
There have been 1,936 cases of COVID-19 recorded in the Island Health region since the pandemic began.
There are now 255 active cases of COVID-19 on Vancouver Island, including 23 people in hospital and seven in critical care.
Island Health identified the locations of 220 active cases on the island Thursday. Most of those – 152 – are in the Central Island region, while 58 are in the South Island and 10 are in the North Island.
“Greater Nanaimo is continuing a worrying trend with the total number of new cases increasing for four consecutive weeks,” Island Health said Thursday in a rare statement on precise COVID-19 case locations. “For the week of January 31 to February 6, the 93 new cases in Greater Nanaimo were nearly double the number from the previous week.”
Health officials have now administered 159,887 doses of COVID-19 vaccine in B.C., including 15,684 secondary doses.
“For many of us, this past year will be remembered for the incredible toll that COVID-19 has taken on our province,” said Dix and Henry, before calling attention to B.C.’s latest drug overdose numbers released Thursday.
“But of equal importance is the ongoing overdose emergency that has challenged our province even before the pandemic began. Losing more than 1,700 people to the overdose crisis is devastating, and sadly there is no vaccine that will help to end it soon.”
The health officials said the overdose crisis has shed “light on the inequalities that are all too pervasive in our society.”
