Photo: Contributed

The Okanagan region has seen 97 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

New data released by the B.C. government Thursday shows more detailed geographic data of COVID-19 cases around the province, but data showing numbers by city have still not been released. Since the outbreak began, the province has only been releasing data by health authority.

As of Wednesday, there remains no active cases of the virus across the entire Interior Health region, but 196 people have been diagnosed since the pandemic began. Two people have died in the Interior due to the virus.

While the 97 cases in the Okanagan region saw the rate of infection stay under 25 cases per 100,000 people, the Thompson-Caribou-Shuswap region's 65 confirmed cases made the area the highest infection rate in the Interior – just over 29 cases per 100,000 people.

Twelve people have been diagnosed with the virus in the Kootenay Boundary area, while 18 cases were identified in the East Kootenay area.

The largest number of cases in the province were seen in the Fraser Valley and the Metro Vancouver area. Vancouver has seen 540 cases, 20.7 per cent of all the province's cases, while the Fraser South area has seen 523 cases, 20.1 per cent.

Currently, the remaining cases in the province are largely centred around the Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver, but Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reiterated she would not be lifting COVID-19 measures at different times for different regions.

“We know that people are still moving, there's still risk out there,” Dr. Henry said Thursday. “We're still seeing cases come in from Alberta related to other things, related to essential workers going back and forth from Alberta, from the United States and other places.

“We've done this in a co-ordinated way around the province. We all have the same low risk at the moment, because we've all been doing the right things and we need to continue doing them.”

The newly released data also shows that while the majority of infections have impacted British Columbians between the ages of 30 and 69, those 70 and over have suffered the worst. Of the 166 virus-related deaths in B.C., 143 have been people 70 and over, along with 84 of the province's 172 ICU hospitalizations.

And while 52 per cent of the COVID-19 patients in B.C. have been females, men have been much more likely to be hospitalized and die from the virus.

There have been 2,632 total confirmed cases across the province, but there remains just 201 active cases, largely centred around the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser health authorities.

Photo: BC gov.