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Dr. Bonnie Henry reported another 587 new cases of COVID-19 in British Columbia during a live briefing today.
More than half of those cases came from the Fraser Health region and 126 more were in Vancouver Coastal Health, while the rest of the province had under 100 combined.
There are currently 5,691 active cases in BC, 413 people hospitalized due to the virus and 141 of them in intensive care.
Another five British Columbians died of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, all of them over 60 years old, which brings the province’s pandemic death toll to 1,632.
Henry announced today that the province is no longer making the number of people under active health monitoring available due to the resources it takes to produce it each day.
However, she assured that health officials across the province continue to perform contact tracing and follow up on every single case of COVID-19.
The provincial health officer also confirmed today that BC has a second case of Vaccine-Induced Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT).
It’s a man in his 40s who got the AstraZeneca vaccine in Fraser Health, who Henry says is in stable condition and receiving treatment.
“Recognizing the symptoms and getting treatment early is important,” Henry explained. “This is a condition we’re learning more and more about since the safety was first detected.”
Henry advised that the condition is caused by a vaccine stimulating an immune response that develops antibodies against our platelets, which causes a different type of blood clotting.
She said it’s a challenging one to treat, but there’s a test for it and treatment as well.
Anyone who is feeling unwell between four and 28 days after getting vaccinated should call 811 or connect with their local healthcare provider.
That’s particularly true if someone has serious symptoms like persistent severe headaches, shortness of breath, ongoing chest or abdominal pain or swelling in a limb.
More than 2,335,000-million doses of all three COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in BC and all but 120,000 of them are first doses.
At this point, more than half of all eligible adults in BC have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
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