B.C. is readying for what it is calling "Operation Immunize," as new COVID-19 infections continue to accumulate across the province.
The province's point-person on the initiative, Ross Brown, today joined provincial and federal counterparts in talks to walk through exactly how vaccines will be distributed, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry told media Dec. 3.
The discussions involved key representatives from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and others, and were intended "to try and walk through all of those key steps that we're going to need to have in place and understand how to how to facilitate the vaccine delivery, and then immunization processes here in the province, and to anticipate any of the challenges or roadblocks that might come up."
While health officials are looking ahead, COVID-19 continues to ravage the province.
Overnight, there were 12 more COVID-19-releated deaths, for a total of 481 deaths since the first such death was recorded in the province on March 9.
The number of infected individuals sick enough to be in hospital fell for the first time since Oct. 30, as it dropped to 325 from 337 yesterday. The number of people in hospital sick enough to be in intensive care units rose by one to a record 80 people.
New infections continue to rack up, with 694 new cases identified in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 35,422 since the first infection was identified on January 28.
Fraser Health continues to be the hardest-hit health region.
Here is the breakdown of where the new infections are located:
• 114 in Vancouver Coastal Health;
• 465 in Fraser Health;
• 10 in Island Health;
• 82 in Interior Health; and
• 23 in Northern Health.
There are 9,103 people actively fighting infections, while 24,928 individuals have recovered.
THe original article appeared here.
