The active COVID-19 case count and daily average new cases are on the decrease in the Interior Health region, and B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix is praising Kelowna politicians and health officials for their work on the local outbreak.
As the province announced just one new case of COVID-19 in the Interior Health region on Thursday, Aug. 6, Dix said the city’s response to the situation can be used as a model for future community outbreaks.
“I wanted to express our appreciation to Mayor (Colin) Basran in Kelowna, whose team with the City of Kelowna really has done an outstanding job working with Interior Health,” said Dix.
“The mayor, members of council, the city, all of the leadership at Interior Health, people such as MLA Norm Letnick, came together with us and started talking about what needed to be done. All of the things that you see in Kelowna, I think they are a model of how we respond.”
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Dix said the quick response prompted a “significant” decline in active cases in Interior Health over the past couple of weeks — now sitting at 18.
The last available numbers from Interior Health, released Tuesday, Aug. 4, showed 149 cases within the region have been linked to the Kelowna outbreak. The health authority has not released the number of recoveries or hospitalizations associated with Kelowna.
As of Aug. 6, just one person is hospitalized across the Interior Health region. They are in critical care.
Since the pandemic began, Interior Health has recorded 385 cases of COVID-19 and two deaths — 365 have recovered.
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