Image Credit: Global BC

By James Peters

COVID-19

Province of B.C. declares public health emergency, announces 83 new cases of COVID-19

Mar 17, 2020 | 3:59 PM

VICTORIA — B.C. has declared a public health emergency in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced the extraordinary measure at a news conference in Victoria this afternoon.

“This is something that, as you know, we’ve had as a tool in our toolkit for some time,” said Henry. “We felt – I felt – this is the tool that we need now. We’ve taken a number of unprecedented measures in the last few days and this declaration of an emergency enables me to be faster, more streamlined and nimble in the things that we need to do right now.”

The declaration came after Henry revealed a large jump in the number of positive COVID-19 cases in B.C. There are 83 new cases as of Tuesday, bringing the provincial total to 186.

A total of seven cases have been recorded in Interior Health. By far, the most affected health authorities are Vancouver Coastal with 116, and Fraser Health with 47.

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Henry says the dramatic jump in positive test totals can be attributed to the province dealing with a large amount of test results coming in from cluster sites and hospitals in the Lower Mainland.

Three more people have died from the virus, bringing the provincial death toll to seven.

Two of the newly-recorded deaths are associated to a cluster of cases at the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver, while the third death was a man in his 80s in Fraser Health.

Henry also announced the mandatory closure of bars and clubs in B.C., saying they don’t allow people to remain one-to-two metres away from each other.

“There are many places in our community that aren’t able to meet those criteria, under the (public health emergency) order, around mass gatherings and others,” said Henry. “For example, bars and clubs, in my opinion, are not able to meet our test for social distancing and therefore must close.”

In the news conference, Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix demonstrated an appropriate social distance, standing two arm’s lengths from each other, fingertip to fingertip.

Dix noted the BC Centre for Disease Control has a self-assessment tool available on its website.