Fraser Health’s second wave of COVID-19 is still cresting over the rest of B.C.

With B.C.’s COVID-19 case counts continuing to rise, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry went so far as to hold her regular Thursday briefing in Surrey rather than Victoria, Oct. 29.

“We are here because COVID-19 has been disproportionately affecting communities in the Fraser Valley,” she said. “I’m here to show my support for the many, many people in Fraser Health who are working so hard to slow this pandemic down.”

They may be working hard but the results are not yet showing.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control updates its maps every week showing the number of positive COVID-19 tests by subregion over the previous two weeks.

From Oct. 9 to 23, 70 per cent of the new cases were in the Fraser Health region.

READ MORE: B.C. isn't in a second-wave of COVID-19 — the Fraser Health region is

In the latest two week period, from Oct. 16 to 29, that rate has gone up to almost 75 per cent despite the region having only 34 per cent of the province’s population.

Dr. Henry said the spike in cases is often coming from small house parties and is a spillover from Thanksgiving long weekend.

In real numbers, Fraser Health accounted for 2,137 of the 2,864 new cases over the last two weeks.

By comparison, the Interior Health region had 124 cases (90 in the Okanagan, 24 in the Thompson-Cariboo-Shuswap and 10 in the Kootenays). That amounted to 4.3 per cent of the new cases in a region with 14 per cent of B.C.’s population.

In the best shape of all was the Vancouver Island health region with only 15 new cases (.5 per cent of the total) despite having a slightly larger population than the Interior.

The sparsely populated Northern Health region had more cases than the Island, with 54. Vancouver Coastal, the second largest region in B.C., had 534 cases.

When it comes to the heaviest concentration in the Fraser Valley, Surrey was an appropriate location to hold the press briefing.

The Fraser South subregion (Surrey, Delta, Langley and White Rock) had 1,478 cases while Fraser North had 488 and Fraser East with 171.

Since the start of the pandemic in January, Fraser South has recorded 34 per cent of all the cases in B.C. although it’s only one of three subregions in Fraser Health.

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