New COVID-19 cases in New Westminster stabilized in the last week, according to the latest data from the BC Centre for Disease Control.
BCCDC data show New Westminster had a total of 46 cases from Feb. 7 to 13, a slight drop from the 50 new coronavirus cases between Jan. 31 and Feb. 6, but down a lot from the 85 new coronavirus cases between Jan. 24 and 30. By contrast, Richmond had 35 new cases during the same period despite being a community of 215,000 people compared to about 70,000 in New West.
The weekly numbers come as the worst COVID-19 outbreak in New Westminster continues growing.
The long-term care unit at Royal City Manor has had a coronavirus outbreak since Jan. 3, and it has reached at least 131 cases, according to the last update on Feb. 11 by the BC Centre for Disease Control.
Out of those 131 cases, 101 involve residents – 25 of those residents have died. The outbreak comes just as long-term care residents received the COVID-19 vaccine. The BCCDC is expected to update these numbers later this week.
Three British Columbians lost their lives to COVID-19 between Tuesday and Wednesday, and as tragic as that is, it is the lowest number of new deaths reported for a one-day period since November 19. Since the province's first reported COVID-19 death last March, health officials have attributed 1,317 deaths to the virus.
The province does not always break out the number of deaths on weekend days, so it is possible that there were fewer deaths on a recent weekend. Regardless, the low total of new deaths is a positive sign that the province is turning a corner on the most serious metric to watch during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mass vaccinations at seniors' homes appear to have been successful at dampening the death toll in those facilities, as well as helping extinguish new outbreaks.
"There have been no new health-care facility outbreaks," provincial health officer Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a joint statement.
New infections continue, however, at a rate much higher than Henry said that she would like.
Health officials detected 427 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours. That's a significantly higher total than in the past couple of days, but well in the range seen so far this month.
Of the 74,710 infections detected so far during the pandemic, 69,167 people, or more than 92.5%, are considered to have recovered, meaning that they have tested negative twice for the virus.
The number of active infections has been hovering above 4,000 for the past week, and is now 4,150. The vast majority of those people have been told to self-isolate, although 232 are sick enough to be in hospitals, and 63 of those are in intensive care units.
- With files from Glen Korstrom, Business in Vancouver
