B.C. health officials announced 43 new COVID-19 cases Friday, bringing the provincial total to 1,618.
No new deaths were announced, and there have been no new outbreaks in the last day. Officials also confirmed that the outbreak at Vancouver’s Broadway Pentecostal Lodge was an influenza outbreak, not COVID-19.
The latest figures were in a B.C. government statement in which officials also shared new charts that suggest the province is successfully flattening the curve.
Health minister Adrian Dix andhealth officer Dr. Bonnie Henrypraised British Columbians for their commitment to social distancing.
British Columbia could begin lifting some restrictions by mid-May if people continue to keep the spread of the coronavirus in check, health officials said Friday.
In releasing information from computer modelling that will guide its decisions, the province issued a strong warning that if it were to relax extraordinary restrictions too early or too much, it would result in a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Computer modelling by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control with the assistance of the University of B.C. and Simon Fraser University shows lifting restrictions to allow people to go back to 80 per cent to 100 per cent of normal social contacts would result within weeks in a huge jump in people requiring critical care hospital beds.
The information released Friday showed that restrictive measures such as closing schools and universities and shutting pubs and social distancing, where people stay two metres away from those not in their households, have helped reduce the rate of spread of COVID-19.
A worst-case scenario like that experienced by Italy — which the province had used to ensure it had adequate hospital capacity — has not happened.
Italy struggled to check the virus which had killed more than 22,000 people in that country by Friday. Worldwide there are more than 153,000 deaths, including nearly 37,000 in the U.S., according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
B.C. has had 78 deaths and a lower mortality rate than Italy or the U.S. There were no additional deaths announced for the 24 hours ending noon Friday, but officials reported 43 additional cases of COVID-19. B.C. has now had 1,618 cases of COVID-19 but, of those, 574 people remain ill. Vancouver Sun
