COVID-19 cases ticking up after slow drop: Henry

British Columbia's provincial health officer is warning that COVID-19 cases and test positivity rates are ticking up in some jurisdictions due to increased interactions.

Dr. Bonnie Henry says that while the overall number of cases has slowly been coming down across B.C., the seven-day rolling average is starting to creep up.

Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer, and Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, provide an update on COVID-19 in BC. #covidbc https://t.co/VyyRJdZXT8

— BC Government News (@BCGovNews) February 16, 2021

She says this is particularly true in the Fraser Health region, where the viral reproductive rate has risen above one, meaning each infected person is passing the virus on to at least one other person on average.

Dr. Henry says that over the past four days, 1,533 new cases have been confirmed across British Columbia and 26 more people have died.

She says a total of 60 cases involving variants of concern have been confirmed.

They include 40 cases of the variant first identified in the United Kingdom, 19 of the one first detected in South Africa and one strain first found in Nigeria.

"The tide can turn quickly and successes we have in getting our transmission down and preventing outbreaks can also be washed away," Henry says.