An impromptu update by Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry Friday afternoon to address a number of developments in the Province.
She announced 28 new cases, no new deaths and an increase of 12 cases in Interior Health.
“It is not necessarily unexpected but it is a warning that we need to do more to keep things in balance. This is one of the reasons it was important to speak today.”
She said there are 35 cases now connected to recent Kelowna exposure events.
“We anticipate that there will be more cases in the coming days, as people who were exposed are now starting to develop symptoms and Interior Health is working very carefully and closely with a number of the events where these were happening and following people.”
The majority of the cases are in and around Interior Health region, with others in Vancouver Coastal, Island Health and Fraser Health regions and in Alberta.
“This is one of the more concerning issues to us because we recognize that there have been a number of events that have happened [in Kelowna] and we need people to start thinking about how we can socialize safely over the coming weeks.”
Henry said she met with Mayor Colin Basran, Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm Letnick and the CEO of Interior Health to discuss next steps.
“We talked about opportunities to get messages out to people who are coming to visit, whether we put them in grocery stores and liquor stores where people are picking up their supplies for parties. Putting out the messages about how to do it in a way that respects the community in respects to the safety of our community and, we talked about this before, our travel manners in BC.”
Many of the new cases are people in their 20's and 30's.
Henry also said if you are hosting an event, you have an obligation to keep the gathering small, to know everyone who is attending and be able to reach them afterwards and have a designated contact keeper.