Provincial officals reported 81 new cases of COVID-19 in the Interior Health region on Friday afternoon.
Along with the new cases, Interior Health said there are 631 active cases that are isolating, along with 16 people in hospital, including four in intensive care.
The number of deaths in the region since the pandemic began remained at four.
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The total number of cases for the Interior Health region since the pandemic began increased to 2,062, of which 1,426 have recovered.
Interior Health also updated the Mountainview Village long-term care outbreak in Kelowna.
The health agency said another staff member has tested positive for COVID-19, pushing the total number of cases to four.
Of the four, three are staff members while one was a resident who died this week.
North of Kelowna, the Revelstoke cluster is now at 49 cases, up from 46 on Dec. 1.
Interior Health says 23 cases are active, while the remaining 26 have recovered, and that contact tracing has been completed.
“The smaller number of new cases this week is encouraging — a drop off like this is what we want to see after we have completed our initial investigation and have connected with those we have identified as close contacts to original cases,” said IH medical health officer Dr. Karin Goodison.
“However, we do anticipate new cases for a week or two after a cluster is declared, so nobody should be letting down their guard in Revelstoke right now.”
Goodison continued, stating “Interior Health continues to see a significant number of new cases every day and these are impacting rural communities as well as our larger centres.”
The doctor also said “we are cautiously optimistic about our progress and we urge everyone to continue to follow all public health guidance and orders. Working together, we can contain this cluster and prevent further cases of COVID-19 in the Revelstoke region.”
Continuing on, Interior Health says a community cluster in Salmo has been contained.
That cluster had 25 cases reportedly extending south from Nelson.
Interior Health said the majority of the cluster cases were linked to several social events that occurred in Salmo at the end of October and early November.
No exposures were identified in a school setting in Salmo.
