One day before British Columbians begin to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the province’s top doctor announced another 2,146 cases of the virus over the weekend.

There were 698 cases on Saturday, 689 on Sunday, and 759 this morning – with 250 of those cases in the Interior Health Authority – taking the provincial total to 42,943 cases.

In Interior Health, the active case count is up to 837 with 28 people in hospital, six in ICU. Further, there are now 53 cases (38 residents and 15 staff members) at the McKinney Place long-term care home in Oliver since the outbreak was declared on Dec. 6.

Of today’s cases, there were 1,474 cases in Fraser Health, 300 in Vancouver Coastal, 91 in Northern Health, 29 on Vancouver Island, and two other cases in people who live outside of Canada.

For the first time, the active case count in the province crossed the 10,000 mark – to 10,039 active cases – with 359 patients in hospital, including 87 in critical care or ICU.

There were another 49 deaths from COVID-19 throughout the province, taking the death toll to 647 people.  There are another 11,177 people under active public health monitoring because they have been exposed to a confirmed case of the virus.

Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, also noted that the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has arrived in the province, and the first vaccinations will begin tomorrow. She also said the vaccine will be available in all health authorities next week.

“I can’t tell you how exciting this is,” she said, noting workers in long-term care facilities will be the first to get the doses starting this week, with the plans to vaccine 400,000 British Columbians by March.

“We’re going to be saving lives with every dose that we give. My biggest fear right now is we’re not going to do enough, and we’ll let off right now at this point when we’re so, so close,” Henry added. “We have to remember every time we are together [over the holidays] there is a risk. No event of gathering is completely safe.”

“You may be doing all you can to protect yourself…it is making a difference, and that is what we all need to do. There will be a time when we’ll be able to take our masks off, hug, travel – but not now.”

A total of 31,207 people are considered to have recovered from COVID-19, roughly 73 per cent of the total.