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By James Peters

COVID-19

Rate of COVID-19 case decline should catch up to the rest of B.C. soon: IH

May 21, 2021 | 4:20 PM

KAMLOOPS — The chief medical health officer for Interior Health (IH) says the decline of COVID-19 spread within the region should soon match the rates in the rest of B.C.

In a technical briefing Friday (May 21), Dr. Albert de Villiers acknowledged spread of the virus does not seem to be slowing down as quickly in this region as it is in the rest of the province.

As a single day example, one month ago on April 21, B.C. recorded 961 new cases of COVID-19. Eight per cent of those cases were found in Interior Health. Friday, B.C. found 420 new cases, but 14 per cent were in IH.

“It is declining; it’s probably declining a little bit slower,” said de Villiers. “Part of it is because we had some outbreaks in long-term care. We’ve also had limited cases that we have imported from the Alberta side as well – not as many as we anticipated, so that’s okay.

“We know that travel restrictions have definitely helped. There are fewer people coming in from the Lower Mainland. The only people that are supposed to come are people with critical business here or need to come to family that’s very urgent or some palliative patients. We have seen fewer people travel. We will definitely see the numbers going down over the next few weeks.”

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De Villiers says there are indications the IH case counts will begin dropping soon.

“What we have seen is, in general, if there are cases or big outbreaks or higher numbers in the Lower Mainland, we’re usually about two or three weeks behind them,” he said.