COVID-19 update: 2 more deaths over the weekend, 156 new cases

A tray of COVID-19 vaccines are seen at an immunization clinic run by the Fraser Health Authority.

Vancouver -

Two more deaths in British Columbia have been attributed to the novel coronavirus, the provincial health ministry announced Monday.

In its latest update on COVID-19 in B.C., the ministry said two people died over the weekend, both in the Lower Mainland.

The update brings the provincial death toll since the start of the pandemic to 1,763. The rolling weekly average number of deaths is now at 0.43 per day, back to where it was on July 10.

Last week, the average reached as low as 0.14.

In a statement, the ministry also announced another 156 cases of the disease were confirmed over the weekend: 56 from Friday to Saturday, 60 from Saturday to Sunday and 40 from Sunday to Monday.

Of those, 63 were in the Fraser Health region, which spans from Burnaby to Boston Bar. Fraser Health is currently dealing with 166 active infections.

Another 58 were in the Interior Health region, where there are 179 active cases.

Twenty-seven were added in Vancouver Coastal Health, the region with the highest number of active cases as of Monday, at 246.

There were just four confirmed in the Island Health area, where 21 cases are considered active, and three in Northern Health (22 active cases).

A single case was confirmed in a person who lives outside of Canada.

Of the 146,062 cases that have been confirmed through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, 653 are considered active. Of those, 49 people are hospitalized, a dozen of whom are being treated in intensive care units.

The latest case update brings B.C.'s rolling seven-day average up to 47 cases per day, from 42, but the number of hospitalizations is the lowest its been since mid-September.

The update also included that 79.9 per cent of eligible residents have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 53 per cent have been given their second shot.