COVID-19 update for March 15: Here’s the latest on coronavirus in B.C.

This is your each day replace with every little thing you must know on the novel coronavirus scenario in B.C.

Creator of the article:

Scott Brown, Tiffany Crawford, Cheryl Chan, David Carrigg

Publishing date:

Mar 15, 2021 • 13 minutes in the past • 7 minute learn • Join the conversation

FILE PHOTO: The ultrastructural morphology exhibited by the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), first detected in Wuhan, China, is seen in an illustration launched by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. January 29, 2020. Photograph by Handout . /by way of REUTERS

Right here’s your each day replace with every little thing you must know on the novel coronavirus scenario in B.C. for March 15, 2021.

We’ll present summaries of what’s happening in B.C. proper right here so you may get the most recent information at a look. This web page can be up to date frequently all through the day, with developments added as they occur.

Test again right here for extra updates all through the day. You may also get the most recent COVID-19 information delivered to your inbox weeknights at 7 p.m. by subscribing to our newsletter here.

B.C.’S COVID-19 CASE NUMBERS

As of March 12:

Whole variety of confirmed instances: 86,867 (5,070 energetic)
• New instances since March 11: 648
• Whole deaths: 1,397 (0 new deaths)
• Hospitalized instances: 255
• Intensive care: 67
• Whole vaccinations: 380,743 persons are immunized, of whom 87,024 have had a second dose.
• Circumstances underneath public well being monitoring: 9,155
• Recovered: 80,325
• Lengthy-term care and assisted-living houses, and acute care services at present affected: 19

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IN-DEPTH:COVID-19: Here are all the B.C. cases of the novel coronavirus

B.C. GUIDES AND LINKS

• COVID-19: Here’s a list of all the vaccination clinics in B.C.

• COVID-19: Here’s everything you need to know about the novel coronavirus

• COVID-19 FAQ: What you need to know about the vaccine rollout in B.C.

• COVID-19: Have you been exposed? Here are all B.C. public health alerts

• COVID-19 at B.C. schools: Here are the school district exposure alerts

• COVID-19: Avoid these hand sanitizers that are recalled in Canada

• COVID-19: Here’s where to get tested in Metro Vancouver

• B.C. COVID-19 Symptom Self-Assessment Tool

LATEST NEWS ON COVID-19 IN B.C.

3 p.m. – Well being officers are set to share newest figures on COVID-19 in B.C.

Well being officers are anticipated to replace the variety of COVID-19 instances, deaths and recoveries throughout the province.

11:30 a.m. – PM Trudeau ready his flip for vaccine

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’ll fortunately take a COVID-19 vaccine when his time comes.

However Trudeau isn’t circling a date on the calendar for his flip as a result of he says that’s not the place his focus is in the mean time.

Canada is scheduled to obtain multiple million doses of varied COVID-19 vaccines each week as vaccination efforts ramp up nationally.

Trudeau says extra important employees ought to have the ability to get vaccinated after weak populations resembling seniors.

He says his mom, Margaret, obtained her vaccine final week.

– The Canadian Press

9:45 a.m. – LIVE REPORT: British Columbia opens public vaccination clinics

The most important mass vaccination effort within the historical past of British Columbia begins at this time because the province’s COVID-19 immunization marketing campaign, which beforehand solely focused front-line well being employees and seniors inside assisted-living services, expands to incorporate most people.

B.C. residents 90 and older and Indigenous elders 65 and older, who booked appointments at vaccination clinics final week, are first in line to obtain the vaccine at this time.

Vancouver Solar reporter Lori Culbert is contained in the immunization clinic at Creekside Group Centre in Vancouver’s Olympic Village.

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8 a.m. – Germany joins rising record of nations to droop AstraZeneca Vaccine

Germany suspended use of the AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine amid a rising well being scare that’s creating one more delay for the European Union’s inoculation marketing campaign.

The nation cited the advice of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which oversees vaccine security, in accordance with an announcement from the well being ministry on Monday.

Germany joins a few dozen locations, together with Northern Italy, the Netherlands and Eire, which have halted use of the product amid stories of significant blood clotting. It’s one more blow to a vaccination marketing campaign that’s proving embarrassingly gradual and politically damaging for governments throughout the EU.

Whereas regulators have tried to reassure the general public about security of the Astra shot, considerations are rising. Some Italian areas are reporting a excessive stage of cancellations of vaccine appointments the place the dose supplied is the Astra one. Authorities in Italy have additionally seized lots of of hundreds of Astra pictures as a part of their response.

The choice of governments to pause Astra shot deliveries may delay a objective of immunizing three-quarters of the inhabitants by as a lot as a month. London-based analysis agency Airfinity Ltd. mentioned it may push again the timing by at the very least a few weeks and probably longer — to September as an alternative of August.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal authorities is protecting a detailed eye on European response to a batch of COVID-19 vaccines linked to attainable uncomfortable side effects.

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Trudeau says not one of the doses Canada has obtained from the vaccine maker are from the problematic batch.

– Bloomberg and Canadian Press

6 a.m. – Coming week will see trickle of COVID-19 vaccine doses earlier than floodgates open

The Public Well being Company of Canada is anticipating a smaller-than-normal cargo of COVID-19 vaccines this week, with fewer than 445,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech pictures scheduled for supply over the following seven days.

But that seeming trickle is about to blow up right into a full-blown flood beginning the week of March 22 as the businesses dramatically ramp up their deliveries and different pharmaceutical companies begin making good on their very own promised shipments.

The Public Well being Company says this coming week would be the final during which Canada will obtain fewer than 1 million doses over a seven-day interval. Pfizer and BioNTech alone are on faucet to ship greater than that every week for the foreseeable future.

Canada can be anticipated to begin receiving extra pictures of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine beginning in April, in addition to Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose inoculation. These are along with the bi-weekly supply of doses from Moderna, the following of which is scheduled for the week of March 22.

Public Procurement Minister Anita Anand mentioned on Friday that Canada is on monitor to obtain 7 million vaccine doses from the assorted firms by the tip of April, with a complete of 36.5 million delivered by the tip of June and 118 million earlier than Sept. 30.

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– The Canadian Press

6 a.m. – Alberta detects first cases of Brazil variant

Alberta has detected its first two instances of the extremely contagious COVID-19 variant that was recognized in Brazil, P.1, on Sunday because the province prepares to as soon as once more increase vaccine eligibility.

The 2 instances of the P.1 pressure have been linked to journey and are each situated within the Calgary zone, mentioned Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of well being, on her Twitter account Sunday. The 2 are already isolating and their shut contacts are being supplied testing twice.

That is the third variant pressure to be detected in Alberta, although P.1 has been situated in different provinces, together with Ontario and B.C.

– Edmonton Journal

SUNDAY

9:30 p.m. –Outbreak in a single unit at VGH

Vancouver Coastal Well being has declared an outbreak on unit T14G, an inpatient unit within the Jim Pattison Pavilion at Vancouver Common Hospital as two sufferers have examined constructive for COVID-19.

The unit is closed to new admissions and transfers at the moment. All visitation has been suspended till the outbreak measures have been lifted; the exception being for compassionate visits on the finish of life.

In the meantime, the outbreak precautions on unit T11D within the VGH Jim Pattison Pavilion have been lifted and this unit is not on outbreak.

7:30 p.m. – B.C. begins mass vaccination rollout on Monday

On Monday, B.C. residents aged 80 years and older and Indigenous peoples aged 65 and older can name to e-book a vaccine appointment. Seniors 80 and older have been initially scheduled to start calling on March 22 however resulting from positive factors within the Telus name centre, that cohort was moved up by per week on Sunday night.

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These on the Sunshine Coast aged 80 and older may also name beginning Monday.

To keep away from backlogs on the reserving traces, seniors 84 and over can start calling Monday, these 83 and older on Tuesday, 82 and older on Wednesday, 81 and older on Thursday and 80 and older on Thursday.

There are roughly 105,000 seniors between the ages of 80 and 84 who haven’t but been vaccinated.

– Katie DeRosa and Matt Robinson

3:15 p.m. – Life lessons learned during our year of COVID-19: “I cannot wait for the pandemic to end”

A brand new Leger ballot carried out for Postmedia exhibits the No. 1 life lesson that respondents say they realized through the previous 12 months was to cherish household and associates, and different social connections, that we, maybe, took without any consideration earlier than COVID’s arrival in B.C. final winter.

When the pandemic was first declared on March 11, 2020, Leger’s polling discovered, greater than 40 per cent of us have been nonetheless making “constructive connections” with household and associates outdoors our house, regardless of the social distancing guidelines. However at this time, that has dropped to only a quarter of British Columbians maintaining these vital interactions.

B.C. VACCINE TRACKER