COVID-19 cases in the eastern Fraser Valley have now been on the decline for three weeks in a row.
Between Jan. 29 and Feb. 4, there were 255 positive cases of COVID-19 in the Fraser Valley East health region, the which encompasses Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack, Hope and Agassiz. Fraser North had 317 cases, and Fraser South had 749.
This decline extends to the region’s daily rate of new COVID-19 cases. For the week of Jan. 29, the eastern Fraser Valley saw around 12 new cases per day for every 100,000 people, compared to nearly 19 cases a day a month earlier.
SEE ALSO: One in 50 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Fraser East
The rest of the Fraser Health region is also seeing a decrease in its daily rate of infection. Currently, Fraser South and Fraser East are seeing around the same rate of new cases per 100,000 people, while Fraser North is sitting around 7 new cases a day per 100,000 people.
Although Fraser South saw a small increase in its cases this week, the Fraser Health region as a whole has seen a significant decrease in the number of cases since the height of the pandemic in mid-November, when the province reached a daily total of nearly 1,000 new cases in one day.
Although the growth in new cases was steep in late October and early November, it has taken much longer for the case numbers to come down. Because of this, the province has extended its restrictions on social gatherings until at least the end of the month.
RELATED: B.C. extends COVID-19 gathering restrictions as infections slow down
“We want to protect the progress we have made since the start the year and not throw away our success,” Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a statement.
“To do this, we need to buy ourselves some time – time to get our immunization program back up to speed as vaccine supply is restored and scaled up, and time to understand whether and how the variants of concern will affect transmission in our communities.”
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