There are no new reported cases of COVID-19 on Vancouver Island today.
On Saturday, B.C. health officials reported 10 new cases of COVID-19 in the province, but said none of the new cases were within the Island Health region.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in B.C. is now at 2,517.
Officials also reported two new deaths from the virus, bringing the province’s overall death toll to 157. The two deaths were within the Fraser Health region, officials said.
Of the 2,517 total cases, there are 1,244 reported cases in Fraser Health, 890 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 194 in Interior Health, 127 in Island Health, and 62 in Northern Health.
There are 303 people currently infected by COVID-19 in B.C., and of those, 39 are in hospital, with eight people in intensive care.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, said on Saturday that a total of 2,057 people have fully recovered from COVID-19, adding that B.C.’s recovery rate is 82 per cent.
There are currently 14 active outbreaks at long-term care facilities, two outbreaks at acute care facilities, but no new outbreaks at either of those types of facilities.
A total of 540 cases, including 330 residents and 210 staff, are associated with those facilities. There are, however, no new resident cases of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, Henry said.
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A community outbreak was reported, however, at Nature’s Touch, a food processing plant in Abbotsford. Henry said five people associated with the plant have COVID-19, but said the cases were caught earlier.
“This one was caught relatively early . . . the plant was not ordered to close, but [has] closed over the weekend to make sure all the procedures are in place,” Henry said, adding that Fraser Health is investigating the matter.
So far this month, there have been less than 10 COVID-19 cases reported for the Island Health region, which covers Vancouver Island and as well as an area north of the Sunshine Coast.
Yesterday, May 22, one new COVID-19 case was reported in the Island Health region, the first since May 14, when officials also reported one new case for the region.
Prior to that, one case was reported on May 8, one case was reported on May 4, two cases were reported on May 2, and a single case was reported on May 1. Health officials had erroneously reported two cases for the region on May 7, but said the next day that it was a mistake.
During Saturday’s update, Henry said COVID-19 can be passed on from humans to domestic pets such as cats and dogs. She said, cats, however, are more likely than dogs to contract the virus.
“That is something we’ve been following from the beginning, of course, from the beginning,” Henry said in response to a question from the media. “Whether we can pass it on to animals, and animals can pass it back to us and particularly looking at companion animals because those are the ones we have close contact with, so cats and dogs. And it is clear we can transmit this virus to cats and dogs, although not as effectively to dogs, for example, to cats.”
Henry said isn’t aware of cases where humans received the virus from living animals, until recently when she read about one a case in the Netherlands.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>BREAKING: Dr. Bonnie Henry updates BC on <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> in BC<br><br>-10 new cases<br>-2,517 total<br>-2 new deaths<br>-157 total deaths<br>-2,057 recovered<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/bcpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#bcpoli</a></p>— CHEK News (@CHEK_News) <a href=”https://twitter.com/CHEK_News/status/1264286897511120896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
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