As BC announced the winding down of COVID-19 restrictions beginning Wednesday when restaurants, halls and gyms will open with no restrictions other than wearing of masks indoors, daily cases continue to drop with over 500 reported Tuesday with two new deaths. B.C. is reporting 519 new cases of COVID-19, including nine epi-linked cases, for a total of 341,532 cases in the province.

By DESIBUZZCanada Staff

VICTORIA – As BC announced the winding down of COVID-19 restrictions beginning Wednesday when restaurants, halls and gyms will open with no restrictions other than wearing of masks indoors, daily cases continue to drop with over 500 reported Tuesday with two new deaths.

As of Tuesday, Feb. 15, 90.4% (4,506,631) of eligible people five and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 85.3% (4,252,281) have received their second dose.

In addition, 93.1% (4,316,016) of eligible people 12 and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 90.5% (4,194,522) received their second dose and 53.0% (2,454,932) have received a third dose.

Also, 93.5% (4,042,557) of all eligible adults in B.C. have received their first dose, 90.9% (3,933,436) received their second dose and 55.5% (2,400,288) have received a third dose.

B.C. is reporting 519 new cases of COVID-19, including nine epi-linked cases, for a total of 341,532 cases in the province.

Although 519 new cases are reported today, the total number of cases have only increased by 246 from yesterday. This has resulted in no new cases reported in Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health and a decrease in the overall total number of cases in these health authorities compared to yesterday. This is due to data reconciliation from switching between two reporting systems after a system-wide downtime over the past weekend.

The new cases include:

* Fraser Health: zero

* Vancouver Coastal Health: zero

* Interior Health: 287

* Northern Health: 145

* Island Health: 78

* People who reside outside of Canada: nine

There are 787 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 and 124 are in intensive care.

In the past 24 hours, two new deaths (Northern Health) have been reported, for an overall total of 2,766.

There has been one new health-care facility outbreak at The Heights at Mt. View (Island Health). The outbreak at Island View Place (Island Health) has been declared over, for a total of 39 facilities with ongoing outbreaks, including:

* long-term care:
* Queen's Park Care Centre, Good Samaritan Delta View Care Centre (Fraser Health)

* Village at Smith Creek, Pinegrove Care Centre, Mount Ida Mews, Dr. Andrew Pavillion, Poplar Ridge, Noric House, Glenmore Lodge, Trinity Care Centre, Ponderosa, Castleview Care Centre, Overlander Residential Care (Interior Health)

* Wexford Creek, Sidney Care Home, Eden Gardens, Kiwanis Village Lodge, Dufferin Place, Salvation Army Sunset Lodge, James Bay Care Centre, Sunset Lodge, Arrowsmith Lodge, Woodgrove Manor, Amica on the Gorge, Tsawaayuus Rainbow Gardens, Berwick on The Lake, Chemainus Health Care Centre, Selkirk Seniors Village, Sunridge Place, Nanaimo Seniors Village, Sluggett House, Glacier View Lodge, Rest Haven Lodge, Sidney All Care and The Heights at Mt. View (Island Health)

* acute care:
* Queen's Park Care Centre (Fraser Health); and

* Nanaimo Regional General Hospital (Island Health)

* assisted or independent living:
* Chartwell Langley Gardens (Fraser Health); and

* Nicola Meadows (Interior Health)

Note: Due to a delayed refresh in BCCDC data, the update on cases and hospitalizations by vaccination status is unavailable today.

Since December 2020, the Province has administered 11,158,060 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer Pediatric COVID-19 vaccines.