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Reaching the 5 million mark with COVID-19 cases worldwide, almost 80,000 in Canada

BC has had a combination of "good timing and luck"

Coronavirus, COVID-19
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Thursday May 21, 2020 ~ NATIONAL | GLOBAL

by Mary Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News

The number of cases of test-positive COVID-19 cases worldwide has reached nearly 5 million as of today May 21.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in their Situation Report #122 today reports 4,893,186 cases globally (with 103,981 of those tallied in the last day). In the pandemic to date there have be 323,256 deaths around the world (4,467 in last day).

COVID-19, number of cases, map, May 21 2020
Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reported in the last seven days by country, territory or area, May 15 to 21, 2020. Canada is in the 1,001-10,000 range while the USA is in the 100,000+ range. [World Health Organization]

Presently considered a hotspot for the COVID-19 viral infection, the United States has reported 1,501,876 cases to the WHO at this date (24,417 in last day). In the USA there have been 90,203 deaths (932 in the last day).

Here in Canada there have been 79,502 cases of COVID-19 reported to the WHO (1,003 in last day). In this country 5,955 people have died due to COVID-19 (98 in the last day).

British Columbia is holding the line:

Dr Bonnie Henry, May 21 2020
BC Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry at her May 21, 2020 media briefing.

In British Columbia we have had a combination of “good timing and luck”, said Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry today in her COVID-19 media briefing with BC Health Minister Adrian Dix.

BC has also benefited by a cooperative population that has for the most part followed public health guidelines including self-isolation (for about two months) and physical distancing (since mid-March and going forward still).

Minister Dix implores British Columbians to continue to be “100 percent all in” in maintaining the public health measures that have contributed to ‘flattening the curve’ of COVID-19 infections in BC.

The COVID-19 stats in BC as of May 21 show 2,479 cases (12 new in the last day); that is comprised of 887 in Vancouver Coastal, 1,223 in Fraser Health, 126 on Vancouver Island, 183 in the Interior region, and 60 in Northern Health. In BC there have been 152 deaths to date (three in the last day). In this province, 2,020 people have fully recovered from test-positive cases of COVID-19.

Second wave still to come:

Historically speaking, every pandemic has had a second wave. That period of higher rates of infection is pretty much expected in a few months’ time as the season of respiratory illnesses arrives in the fall months, lasting through to winter 2021. Testing for COVID-19 will be included in the usual routine for influenza testing.

So far it is unclear whether in BC we will need to go ‘back indoors’ into self-isolation after experimenting with Phase 2 (May 19 to 31) and Phase 3 (this coming June to September).