COVID-19 cases continue at rapid pace with 230 more in Interior Health

The rate of infection from COVID-19 is not slowing down at all as 553 new cases have been recorded in B.C. in the last 24 hours, with 230 of those in the Interior Health region.

That’s roughly at the same level it’s been for the last week or so and above the number of new daily cases recorded most days since mid-May.

This comes at a time when the vaccination rate for B.C. residents over the age of 12 has reached 83.6 per cent with 75.1 per cent being second doses, according to a Ministry of Health news release issued today, Aug. 18.

Of the new cases, 152 are in the Fraser Health region, 97 in Vancouver Coastal, 38 on Vancouver Island and 36 in the Northern Health region.

One more person has died from COVID, in Fraser Health, bringing the provincial total to 1,782.

Interior Health has 3,203 of the province’s 5,480 active cases. Of those,107 people are in hospital with 53 in intensive care.

There has been one new outbreak in an Interior Health care facility, this one in the Nicola Meadows assisted living home in Merritt.

READ MORE: COVID outbreaks declared at three more Kelowna care homes


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics