Heading in to the Family Day long weekend, B.C. health officials are reporting 445 new cases of COVID-19 as well as ten more deaths in the province.

There were 44 new cases in Interior Health with 218 new cases in Fraser Health, 135 new cases in Vancouver Coastal Health, 30 in Northern Health, and 15 on Vancouver Island. There were also three new cases in people who live outside of Canada.

One of those deaths was in Interior Health at the Heritage Retirement Residence in West Kelowna. This Sunday, Valentine’s Day will mark the one year anniversary of the first case reported in Interior Health. As it stands, there have been 6,916 cases in the health authority.

“After a year of responding to this challenging pandemic, sadly we continue to experience its impact,” said IHA President and CEO, Susan Brown, in a statement. “For Valentine’s Day and Family Day this weekend, please do your part to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Refrain from gathering, follow public health guidance and connect with loved ones, virtually.”

There were no new cases at the Royal Inland Hospital outbreak which remains at 105 cases with 32 active. No new cases as well as the Highridge Home and Singh House outbreak which remains at nine cases, seven of those currently active.

Interior Health is however investigating after six new cases at the Brocklehurst Gemstone Care Centre this week, with five more residents testing positive since yesterday. There are now 31 cases linked to the outbreak there with eight active.

Active cases across the province are at 4,347 people with 226 people in hospital, 61 in ICU. There are also 7,035 being actively monitored after an exposure to someone with a known case of the virus.

“We are trending in the right direction and pushing our curve down, but slowly,” said Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, noting there has been a significant decrease in transmission in long-term care cases. Most of the new deaths were still seniors in long term care.

There have been a total of 46 COVID-19 cases linked to variants of concern – 29 of the so-called UK variant and 17 of the so-called South Africa variant. In addition, there was also a first case of a variant first identified in Nigeria in the Interior Health Authority in a person who travelled there.

“We do not yet know the effects of that variant,” Henry said, nothing the person is isolating and no transmission has been detected.

It’s not clear which community this person lives in.

She did however note that health officials screened every positive case between Jan. 30 and Feb. 5 – a total of 3,099 tests and found three confirmed variants of concern, one of the South African variant and two of the U.K. variant.

“This is reassuring. It tells us we don’t have high levels of transmission in our communities, but that we must still be cautious and monitor,” Henry added.

As of today, there have been 162,982 doses of a COVID vaccine, with 17,562 being second doses. Henry is optimistic that the vaccine rollout in the province will ramp up in the weeks ahead as Canada expects a significant increase in the supply of vaccines from both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said air travellers to Canada will have to quarantine in a hotel starting on Feb. 22, as the government tries to curb the spread of new, more transmissible variants of COVID-19.

There are 67,008 people considered to have recovered from COVID-19, about 92 per cent of B.C.’s total 72,750 cases.