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B.C. COVID-19 spread continues with 498 cases Wednesday

Four additional deaths, no new health care outbreaks
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Members of the Vancouver Police Department are seen outside an Irish Pub in downtown Vancouver, Wednesday, March 17, 2021. Liquor sales are cut off at 8 p.m. for St. Patrick’s Day. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

B.C. recorded another 498 confirmed cases of COVID-19 Wednesday, about the same level of spread in communities as has been seen in recent days.

That brings the total number of active cases in the province to 4,851, with 281 people in hospital, 83 in intensive care. There were four deaths related to the novel coronavirus reported Wednesday, for a total of 1,411 since the pandemic began a year ago.

For the second straight day, there have been no new health care system outbreaks, reflecting the effectiveness of protection from vaccinating health care workers and seniors in long-term care.

Community vaccination of people aged 85 and up began this week, and by Wednesday there have been 444,140 doses of the three vaccines approved in Canada have been administered,

“Since we last reported, we have had 128 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 291 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 12 in the Island Health region, 31 in the Interior Health region, 36 in the Northern Health region and no new cases of people who reside outside of Canada,” provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a statement March 17.

“Due to a lab sequencing issue, no new variant of concern data is available today. As of the most recent report, there have been 996 confirmed COVID-19 cases that are variants of concern identified in our province.”

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RELATED: B.C. liquor sales end at 8 p.m. for St. Patrick’s Day


@tomfletcherbc
tfletcher@blackpress.ca

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