The number of new weekly COVID-19 cases in New Westminster dropped only slightly during the recent reporting period, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control.
New West recorded 75 cases from May 9 to 15 – down from the 85 cases from May 2 to 9, and the 104 cases from April 25 to May 1, which is down from the 122 cases between April 18 and 24, and the 126 cases from April 11 to 17 and below the 151 new coronavirus cases from April 4 to 10.
New West saw 103 cases from March 28 to April 3.
New Westminster’s COVID case counts and testing positivity rates have the city sitting in the middle of the pack for the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley region.
Meanwhile, B.C.'s battle against COVID-19 continued to show promising signs, according to new data released May 19.
The number of those in hospital with the disease, for example, fell by 20, to 340 – a number that has not been lower since April 9. The number of those in intensive care units (ICU) also fell, by nine, to 118 – the lowest that it has been since April 13.
The number of people in the province actively fighting infections also fell – for the 18th consecutive data update – to 4,815, the lowest tally since March 4.
Unfortunately, the number of new cases identified in the past day rose to 521, which is the first time above 500 since May 13.
In total, B.C. has had 140,596 known cases of COVID-19 since the first case was identified in January, 2020. Of those, almost 95.3%, or 133,985 people are considered to be recovered.
The province's way of determining who is recovered is based on a determination of who is infectious, provincial health officer Bonnie Henry explained last week. People who are self-isolating are given 10 days from the date that they first started exhibiting symptoms. As long as they are continuing to improve, they are declared to have recovered at that 10-day mark.
- With additional reporting by Glen Korstrom, Glacier Media
