B.C. reports more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases; Number of active cases rise past 8,600

British Columbia's provincial health officer says she expects the province to catch up to Ontario in the proportion of variant COVID-19 cases that were first identified in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Bonnie Henry says about a third of BC's cases are from that variant while the strain represents about 60 per cent of Ontario's new cases. But she expects BC to match that figure in about a month.

Dr. Henry says the variants are worrying but of the three thousand, seven hundred and sixty six variant cases, only 266 are active.

That represents about three per cent of all the active COVID-19 cases in BC.

She also says while the variant first identified in the UK is the most prevalent, the strain first detected in Brazil is also a concern and a high percentage of that variant is associated with Whistler.

The province reported one thousand and sixty eight new COVID-19 cases today and three additional deaths.

There are 328 people in hospital and 96 of them are in critical care.

Dr. Henry says a lot of the transmission is happening in social situations among young people and she is urging everyone to follow public health orders and not hold gatherings indoors.