B.C.'s steady number of new vaccinations appears to be helping the province's efforts to control COVID-19's spread.
Another 70,478 people received vaccine jabs in the arm in the past 24 hours – the third highest for a single day so far. Of those only 16,108 were recipients' initial dose, while 54,370 individuals received needed second doses. The only time more second doses were administered was on June 7, when 57,521 people received their needed second shots.
In total, health officials have provided 3,893,581 doses of vaccine to 3,395,649 people, with 497,932 of those getting second doses.
“There's evidence emerging that you get a stronger, and longer lasting, protection if the interval is greater than eight weeks,” provincial health officer Bonnie Henry said yesterday (June 10.)
Some pharmacies have been restocked with AstraZeneca supplies, and BIV has learned that some of them are allowing recipients to get second-dose shots even if they have not yet gone a full eight weeks after their first doses.
The vaccinations translate into 75.1% of B.C. adults having had at least one vaccine shot, while 73.1% of all those 12 years and older have had at least one shot, Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a joint statement.
New infections continue, albeit at a lower rate than in recent weeks.
Health officials detected another 180 infections overnight, for a total of 146,176 since the first case was discovered in January, 2020. Of those, the province has deemed that more than 97.5%, or 142,526 people, have recovered because they have gone at least 10 days following initial symptoms and are not thought to still be infectious.
Serious bouts of COVID-19 are at a seven-month low.
The 162 people now fighting for their lives in B.C. hospitals is a number lower than at any time since November 12, when there were 155 such people. Of the 162 people hospitalized, 45 have bouts of the disease serious enough to be in intensive care units (ICU). The last time there were so few people in ICUs was also on November 12, when 44 individuals were in those critical care spaces.
One additional death from COVID-19 happened overnight, according to Henry and Dix. That raises the province's death toll from the disease to 1,730.
The number of those actively fighting infections has dropped for the 35th consecutive provincial data update, to 1,880 – the lowest number since October 21.
By health region, the 180 infections discovered in the past day includes:
• 11 in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Coastal Health (6.1%);
• 107 in Fraser Health (59.4%);
• 13 in Island Health (7.2%);
• 39 in Interior Health (21.7%); and
• 10 in Northern Health (5.6%).
One new outbreak has been detected at Rotary Manor Dawson Creek in Northern Health.
That means that there are now six active outbreaks at seniors' homes. They are:
• Cherington Place in Surrey;
• Glenwood Seniors' Community in Agassiz;
• Heritage Manor in Fort St. John;
• Richmond Lions Manor-Bridgeport in Richmond;
• Rotary Manor in Dawson Creek; and
• Spring Valley Care Centre in Kelowna.
The two active outbreaks at B.C. hospitals are at Richmond Hospital and at Kelowna General Hospital.
