What happened: Another 86 cases of COVID-19 virus have been confirmed over the last 48 hours, bringing the total to 970, and the first death outside of long-term care home or hospital has been confirmed.
Why it matters: The new cases over the last two days is lower than Friday, which saw a spike of 92 new cases over a 24-hour period.
B.C. now has confirmed 970 COVID-19 cases, with roughly half of those infected – 469 – confirmed to have recovered. Of those recovered, more than 70 had been in hospital.
"I think that's really a testament to the importance of people being in hospital at the right time, being ventilated at the right time, if they need it," said public health officer Bonnie Henry.
There have been two additional deaths since Friday, bringing the total death toll to 19. One of them is the first "community" death to be recorded -- i.e.. outside of a have been in long-term care homes or hospital. Due to privacy laws, Henry said the identity of the person will not be made public.
Of those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, 106 are in hospital, 60 of whom are in critical care.
Only 19 new cases were reported for the 24-hour period between March 27 and 28, but then 70 new cases were reported over the last 24 hours.
But there are concerns -- some of them being expressed by medical health practitioners -- that not enough testing is being done to get a truly accurate picture of how many people may have the COVID-19 virus.
There are now 13 long-term care and assisted living facilities with at least one case of COVID-19 confirmed in either a resident or staff member.
Henry said measures taken in recent weeks to isolate people are having an impact, but added: "We are not through the storm yet. We have not yet reached our peak. We have more people everyday who are in hospital and in our intensive care units, so we need to continue to do all we can, across government, across our health system and in our community."
