Vancouver Island COVID-19 cases: Health officials to provide update
CTV
British Columbia health officials will provide an update Tuesday on the province's battle with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry will hold a live news conference Tuesday afternoon.
CTV News Vancouver Island will stream the announcement LIVE @ 1:30 p.m.
The health minister says that while there has been a lot of attention paid to the new Omicron COVID-19 variant, the focus should remain on the Delta variant because it continues to have a “profound impact” on people who are not vaccinated.
Dix said the Delta variant is disproportionately affecting those who haven't been vaccinated, including most of the more than 150 people who have been moved from the Northern Health authority to southern hospitals.
The transfers are weighing down the health-care system because many of those people are in critical condition and require teams of health-care workers at every stage of their transport, Dix said Monday.
Health officials identified 197 new cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Island region over the weekend. The new cases were among 956 cases found across B.C. since Friday.
There are currently 2,876 active cases of COVID-19 in B.C., including 624 active cases in the Island Health region.
Island Health has the second-highest number of active cases in the province behind the Fraser Health region, where 927 cases were active Monday.