Two hundred and ninety four people have tested positive for COVID-19 since Friday in B.C.

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Dr. Bonnie Henry asks for ‘slowing down’ with likely second wave

Two hundred and ninety four people have tested positive for COVID-19 and four people have died from it since Friday in B.C. Five of the new cases are in the Island Health region, which brings our active case count to 25. Province-wide, there are more than 1100 active cases and more than 2700 people who are self isolating because they have had close contacts with COVID cases.

The provincial health officer is asking British Columbians to prepare for the fall by shrinking their bubbles. Dr. Bonnie Henry says with schools about to reopen and more people returning to work, everyone needs to rethink who they are having contact with outside of those controlled settings.

"We are entering a new phase of our B.C. COVID-19 pandemic. We will likely have a second wave. Now we must slow down. We need to take a step back from some of the social interactions that we have had this summer. As the weather changes and we move towards more indoors, we need to keep our visitors to a minimum and I need everyone to pay attention."—Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.

Henry says people can look to restaurant limits of six and limits of five visitors at short term rentals as examples of social gathering limits. Parents need to consider whether to allow their kids to participate in extra curricular activities. She says people who have close contact with elders may need to reduce their contacts even more.

B.C. not alone in economic woes caused by COVID-19

From a budget surplus of $274 million dollars to a deficit of $321 million dollars, that's how COVID-19 has affected last year's provincial budget. BC's Minister of Finance has presented what's called "Public Accounts" or the final accounting of the past fiscal year, which ended in March. Carole James says during the first three quarters of the fiscal year, B.C. had no operating debt, was seeing steady economic growth and had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. James says COVID-19 changed everything.

"COVID 19 has ravaged economies across the world and BC is not immune to those impacts. Specifically, the pandemic led to lower tax revenues, a bigger loss at ICBC in the fourth quarter and unexpected government spending and health authority costs in respect to COVID-19."—Minister of Finance Carole James.

James is calling it “The worst economic crisis in the province's history”. And the bad news isn't over yet. Last year accounting captured only the first month of the pandemic. Next year, B.C.'s deficit is already projected to be $13 and a half billion dollars. Next month, James will give a financial update on the first fiscal quarter of 2020.