Highest daily COVID-19 count since July for Interior Health, Kelowna school outbreak up to 11 cases

Interior Health recorded 18 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours.

It’s the highest single-day total since 20 new cases were recorded all the way back on July 24.

There are now 72 active cases in the BC Interior and two of them are hospitalized, including one in intensive care.

Another six members of the École de L’Anse-au-sable community have tested positive in the last day, bringing the total number of cases connected to that outbreak to 11.

“Although there has been an increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases, there are no new details related to the investigation to report,” said a statement from IH.

There are still around 160 people self-isolating for 14 days due to their connection to the school community and the outbreak.

IH’s medical health officer, Dr. Kamran Golmohammadi also released the following pieces of information today regarding why siblings and contacts of contacts don’t need to self-isolate:

• Interior Health is supporting the school community and coordinating efforts to ensure risk of COVID-19 spread is minimized.
• When someone is exposed to a confirmed case of COVID-19, we consider that individual a contact and ask them to self-isolate for 14 days.
• Although a contact of someone with COVID-19 infection must self-isolate, the contacts of contacts do not require self-isolation.
• We closely monitor all contacts and provide families with information so that we can detect a possible infection early. Following detection of a case, we immediately implement additional measures. This approach will minimize the risk of public exposure.