B.C. health officials are reporting another 619 cases of COVID-19 in the province, on the same day it announced that it plans to immunize 400,000 people against the virus by March 2021.

There were another 81 cases in Interior Health today taking the number of active cases to 656 with 16 people in hospital, four in intensive case. Active cases around the province are at 9,329, with 338 people in hospital, 75 of whom are in ICU.

For the second straight day, there were another 16 new deaths reported, taking the death toll from COVID-19 to 559 people.

“We’ve not bent our curve, we’ve flattened it. We really need to keep these measures up. We’re not at a place to second guess what we did when we did,” said Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry. “We are learning about the virus. We’re learning from around the world.”

Public health teams are actively monitoring 11,526 people after they were exposed to someone with the virus.

There are now 28,488 people who are considered to have recovered from COVID-19, about 72.3 per cent of the total.