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People aged 70 and older in B.C. can pick up COVID-19 rapid test kits from some pharmacies for free later this week.

B.C. to make rapid tests available at pharmacies

By Hannah Scott, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Published 5:13 PST, Wed February 23, 2022

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COVID-19 rapid test kits will be available for free at B.C. pharmacies starting this week, but initially only for those aged 70 and older.

“If you have symptoms and you need to know if they’re COVID, then these rapid tests are a really great way of doing that, and then you need to isolate (for) five days or until you’re better,” said provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry during a press conference today.

“If you have symptoms and you test negative, it doesn’t mean that all of those other measures that we have in place right now you can ignore. It means that you need to continue taking care, making sure that you’re staying away from others until your symptoms resolve,” Henry added.

Availability will be expanded as more tests arrive in the province. Each kit will contain five tests, and there is a limit of one kit per person within a 28-day period. People should pick up their kits when they are asymptomatic, and use one test at a time when they have symptoms. Individuals must present their personal health number when picking up the kit. If others are picking up kits on a person’s behalf, in addition to the person’s name and personal health number, their date of birth must also be supplied.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said, to date the province has received over 22.2 million tests and deployed about 14.8 million of them, leaving about 7.4 million in the inventory. B.C. is expecting to receive about three million tests per week over the next four weeks from the federal government.

Those who test positive should self-report their result on the B.C. Centre for Disease Control website, self-isolate, manage symptoms, and notify close contacts.

Health officials also reported 799 new cases of COVID-19 today. Since the pandemic began, B.C. has recorded 346,196 cases.

Of the new cases, 52 are in the Vancouver Coastal Health region (including Richmond), 109 in the Fraser Health region, 140 in the Island Health region, 280 in the Interior Health region, 214 in the Northern Health region, and four new cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

A B.C. government news release noted that 97 cases reported in Northern Health as new today are due to data corrections for historical cases reported between April 2021 and February 2022.

There are 653 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 and 108 are in intensive care.

To date, 11,290,330 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer Pediatric COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C.; 4,284,366 of those are second doses and 2,549,270 are third doses.

This means that 93.6 per cent of adults, 93.2 per cent of people aged 12 and older, and 90.5 per cent of people aged five and older have received their first dose of a vaccine. In addition, 91.1 per cent of adults, 90.6 per cent of those aged 12 and older, and 86.0 per cent of those aged five and older have received two doses; 57.1 per cent of adults and 55.0 per cent of those aged 12-plus have received three doses.

Novavax's Nuvaxovid COVID-19 vaccine will soon be available in B.C. Anyone interested should call 1-833-838-2323 to be added to the waitlist.

Sadly, there was one new COVID-related death reported today, bringing that total to 2,831. The person who died lived in the Northern Health region.

Henry said while most of the people who have recently died due to COVID-19 have been older people or those with underlying illnesses, in the last few days four people in their 40s have died.

Health authorities reported two health-care facility outbreaks over. Active outbreaks continue at 26 long-term care facilities, one assisted or independent living facility, and two acute care facilities.

From Feb. 15 to 21, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 20.4 per cent of cases and from Feb. 8 to 21 they accounted for 32.8 per cent of hospitalizations.

Past week cases (Feb. 15 to 21)—Total 3,796

• Not vaccinated: 658 (17.3 per cent)

• Partially vaccinated: 118 (3.1 per cent)

• Fully vaccinated: 3,020 (79.6 per cent)

Past two weeks cases hospitalized (Feb. 8 to 21)—Total 504

• Not vaccinated: 141 (28.0 per cent)

• Partially vaccinated: 24 (4.8 per cent)

• Fully vaccinated: 339 (67.2 per cent)

Past week, cases per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Feb. 15 to 21)

• Not vaccinated: 160.0

• Partially vaccinated: 52.7

• Fully vaccinated: 66.8

Past two weeks, cases hospitalized per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Feb. 8 to 21)

• Not vaccinated: 40.3

• Partially vaccinated: 21.4

• Fully vaccinated: 7.2

For the latest medical updates, including case counts, prevention, risks and to find a testing centre near you: http://www.bccdc.ca/ or follow @CDCofBC on Twitter.