VICTORIA -- Provincial health officials identified seven new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Island region Friday.
The daily total is the lowest number of new cases found over a one-day period in the island region since December, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control.
The new cases were among 420 cases identified across British Columbia on Friday.
The province has now confirmed 141,373 cases since the pandemic began, including 4,990 in the Vancouver Island region.
There are currently 161 active cases in the island region, including 11 people in hospital and two more in critical care.
Island Health identified the locations of 112 active cases Friday, including 34 cases in the South Island, 46 in the Central Island and 32 in the North Island.
Six more people in B.C. have died of COVID-19, health officials said in a statement Friday, bringing the province’s pandemic death toll to 1,667. None of the recent deaths were in the Vancouver Island region, where the pandemic has killed 40 people.
The province has now administered 2,744,020 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including 142,406 secondary doses.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix continue to urge British Columbians to adhere to all social and travel restrictions over the long weekend before the plan to lift the restrictions is announced Tuesday.
“We’ll be taking a gradual approach to our restart, monitoring our progress as we go to ensure cases, outbreaks and hospitalizations don’t start to creep up,” Dix and Henry said. “We need everyone to also do their part – this long weekend and in the weeks ahead.”
On Thursday, Premier John Horgan personally cautioned British Columbians against gathering and travelling this weekend during a live address.
“There are provincial health orders in place, there are travel restrictions in place – not to the beginning of the long weekend but to the end of the long weekend,” Horgan said.
The premier said he will again join Dix and Henry on Tuesday to announce the province’s reopening plans.
“It’s a positive plan,” Horgan said. “People will be excited about it, but let’s get through this weekend. It’s so critically important.”
The premier and health officials have declined to reveal further details about the restart plan before Tuesday.
“We’re confident that come July, we’re going to be in a much better place,” Horgan said Thursday. “On Tuesday we’ll lay out that roadmap and I think that it’ll be positively received by the vast majority of British Columbians and I’m confident that they can wait a few more days.”
