On the same day that schools reopened across British Columbia, health officials announced a record-high 139 new daily cases of COVID-19.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said moving forward we can expect cases in schools — which has happened in other provinces across the country — but a system-wide closure would only happen under severe circumstances.
“That would mean that we were in dire straits in many other aspects of our community and that’s what we’re trying absolutely to avoid,” said Henry on Thursday.
With the latest update, there are now 1,412 currently infected patients in the province, the most ever throughout the pandemic. Officials continue to ask B.C. residents to check the growing list of public exposure warnings as part of contact tracing efforts. As of Thursday, there are 3,109 people who are self-isolating and are being actively monitored by B.C. public health, since they were in contact with a known COVID-19 patient.
