Omicron pushes B.C.’s daily COVID case count to highest level ever

B.C. set a new record in the last 24 hours for the number of new COVID-19 cases recorded.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry revealed today, Dec. 21, that the record had been broken while ordering bars, nightclubs and fitness centres to close because of concerns over the rapid spread of COVID because of the Omicron variant.

Scheduled non-urgent surgeries will be cancelled starting Jan. 4.

READ MORE: B.C. government closes bars, fitness centres because of Omicron

“We’re at the case levels that we’ve never heard of before,” Dr. Henry said during a news conference. “Today, we’re somewhere around 1,300 cases – the numbers will be out very soon – that is the highest level we’ve ever had."

There were 1,308 new cases reported in B.C. in the last 24 hours.

The previous high was 1,292 cases on April 8, 2021. There were about a dozen days last spring when case counts were more than 1,000 a day.

On Dec. 13, there were 349 new cases recorded in B.C., showing that COVID’s fourth wave seemed to be in retreat.

The next day health officials announced there were 44 cases of Omicron in B.C. and the numbers of daily cases started a dramatic climb.

Over the weekend, there were 800 to 900 cases a day.

Of the new cases, there were 138 in the Interior Health region, in increase over the average of 89 per day over the weekend but not much higher than the 131 recorded last Friday.

The impact of Omicron has really been in the Lower Mainland where there were 525 new cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health region in the last 24 hours and 419 in Fraser Health. Vancouver Island has not fared well with 202 new cases while Northern Health only had 23.

So far ,there have been 756 cases of Omicron in B.C. but only eight in the Interior Health region. That's up from five on Dec. 16, the last time Omicron numbers were reported by the province. There have been 413 Omicron cases in Vancouver Coastal, 204 on Vancouver Island, 129 in Fraser Health and two in the Northern Health region.

There was one new death in the last 24 hours and the person died in the Northern Health region.

The vaccination rate for those over the age of 12 with at least one dose increased to 91.7% while 88.9% have two doses and 16% have three doses.

There are now 6,348 active cases in B.C. but the hospitalization rate has stayed fairly stable over the past few days with 192 currently in hospital of whom 76 are in intensive care.

 — This story was updated at 4:44 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021 to update of COVID case numbers.

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