B.C.'s second most-populous health authority has the lowest number of new COVID-19 cases in latest update
One of the most populated health authorities in British Columbia also had the fewest new cases of COVID-19 in the latest update from the health ministry.
On Friday, the ministry said 83 cases of the disease had been recorded in Vancouver Coastal Health in the 24-hour period between updates.
That's out of the 768 added to the province's tally of total confirmed cases.
Vancouver Coastal Health represents 1,193,977 patients in total, according to provincial population estimates from the most recent year available: 2019.
In terms of population it is second only to Fraser Health, which has 1,906,933 patients under its authority.
Fraser Health had 239 new cases, according to Friday's update – nearly three times that of Vancouver Coastal.
The Interior Health Authority, with about 827,300 people, saw another 183 cases confirmed through testing by Friday's update, followed by 161 in Northern Health (population: 284,300) and 102 in Island Health (858,800).
Still, daily case results are not the best indicator of how the disease is spreading in B.C.
While relatively few new cases were noted in the region that includes the City of Vancouver, the authority is still dealing with more than 1,000 active cases.
It's a lower number than the active cases in the Fraser and Interior health authorities (1,846 and 1,499), but still higher than the other two (933 in Northern Health, and 700 in Island Health).
And four deaths were noted in Vancouver, compared to two in Fraser Health. Five people died of COVID-19 in the Interior between Thursday's and Friday's updates.
Friday's update marked the deadliest 24 hours in the pandemic since February.
Vancouver Coastal Health is also dealing with multiple health-care facility outbreaks, though Fraser Health has more than any other health region at the moment, and Island Health is the only authority without at least one.
Mapping from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control breaks vaccination rates into local health area, not the broader health authorities.
From the data, which was last updated Monday, it appears the rate of people aged 12 and older with both doses of COVID-19 vaccine is lowest in the following LHAs:
- Peace River South (49 per cent);
- Peace River North (50 per cent);
- Nechako (58 per cent);
- Enderby (59 per cent);
- Creston (60 per cent); and
- Kettle Valley (60 per cent).
The areas with the highest vaccination coverage are:
- Central Coast (90 per cent);
- Saanich Peninsula (88 per cent);
- Vancouver-Midtown (87 per cent);
- Vancouver-Northeast (87 per cent);
- North Vancouver (86 per cent);
- Delta (85 per cent);
- Vancouver City Centre (84 per cent);
- New Westminster (83 per cent);
- Vancouver Westside (83 per cent);
- Burnaby (82 per cent);
- Richmond (82 per cent);
- Tri-Cities (82 per cent);
- Howe Sound (81 per cent);
- South Surrey/White Rock (81 per cent);
- Surrey (81 per cent); and
- West Vancouver/Bowen Island (81 per cent).
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