The province announced 10 additional deaths and 395 new COVID-19 infections during a live press briefing on Thursday (Feb. 25).

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said 86 of the cases were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 207 were in the Fraser Health, 37 were in Island health, 24 were in the Interior Health and 41 were in the Northern Health.

The number of people being treated in hospital fell to 228. Of those patients, 62 people were in critical or intensive care.

Henry told a news briefing there are 4,489 active cases, including nine cases of virus variants of concern.

She says B.C. is ramping up its screening for the variants, aiming to test 100 per cent of COVID-positive samples by next week to determine whether it鈥檚 likely they are variant cases and should be sent for further study.

Henry is also warning that weekly average case counts and test positivity rates have ticked up in recent weeks, particularly in the Lower Mainland.

Close to 240,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in B.C. so far, including more than 68,000 people who received their second shot.

To date, There have been a total of 78,673 cases of the virus in the province.

- with files from the Canadian Press

sarah.grochowski@bpdigital.ca
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