Weekend COVID-19 update: B.C. records lowest single-day case increase since July 2020

A health-care worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a UHN COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Toronto on Thursday, January 7, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Vancouver -

British Columbia recorded 87 new cases of COVID-19 and three related deaths over the weekend, while marking the lowest single-day increase in infections since July 2020.

The province has identified 147,790 coronavirus cases and suffered 1,759 related fatalities since the start of the pandemic.

The latest infections were confirmed over three 24-hour reporting periods: 30 were reported from Friday to Saturday, 37 from Saturday to Sunday, and 20 from Sunday to Monday.

The last time B.C. recorded so few COVID-19 cases in a day was July 19, when health officials announced 19 new infections.

Monday's numbers were not provided by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry or Health Minister Adrian Dix, who announced they were stepping away from their regular pandemic briefings last week.

Instead, the latest COVID-19 update was delivered in the form of a brief news release from B.C.'s Ministry of Health – a shift that signals the improving state of the pandemic in the province.

Over the last seven days, B.C. has identified an average of 35 cases per day, a small fraction of the record average of 1,130 recorded back in April.

The province's active caseload has dropped to 652, the lowest its been since Aug. 14. That includes 85 patients battling COVID-19 in hospital, 22 of whom are in intensive care.

B.C. has administered 5,281,638 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, including enough first doses to cover 78 per cent of people age 12 and up across the province.

Thirty-six per cent of eligible B.C. residents have received both doses of vaccine.