The expected arrival of more than one million COVID-19 vaccine doses this month has British Columbia health officials forecasting shorter waits between first and second doses for more people. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says the increasing vaccine shipments could see the estimated 16-week interval between the first and second shots reduced. But Dr. Henry says it's still too early to concretely estimate the possible difference in wait times other than saying all people in B.C. could get their first vaccines before Canada Day. She says B.C. expects to receive 1.1 million doses of

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization says the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be limited to people over the age of 30 who don't want to wait for Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. The advice is almost identical to that issued for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine last month and comes as both are suspected of causing a new and very rare blood clotting syndrome. In Canada there have been seven known cases of vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia, or VITT, one of them fatal. As of April 24, 1.7 million people in Canada have been given at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. No

A provincial corrections officer has been identified as the victim of a fatal shooting in Delta, B.C.The victim has been identified as Bikramdeep Randhawa, 29, of Surrey, B.C.Delta Police say in a news release they are considering the daylight shooting outside the Scottsdale Centre mall Saturday to be targeted based on behaviour by the suspects, but the motive is not known.They say investigators are looking at all angles, including that it was a case of mistaken identity, that it related to the man's personal life or that it was linked to his occupation.Police say they are in contact with oth

Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, and Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, have issued a joint statement regarding updates on the COVID-19 response in British Columbia. "Today, we are reporting 740 new cases, for a total of 129,482 cases in British Columbia."There are 7,886 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 11,727 people under public health monitoring as a result of identified exposure to known cases. "Of the active cases, 511 individuals are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, 174 of whom are in intensive care. The remaining people are recovering at home in self-

To help keep communities safe and protect British Columbia's health-care system from COVID-19, the Province has authorized site-specific road checks on travel corridors between regions to help enforce the non-essential travel restrictions that were announced on April 23, 2021.On the advice of B.C.'s provincial health officer (PHO), Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, issued an Emergency Program Act order to prohibit non-essential travel between three regional zones in the province. The regional zones are:1. Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley (Fraser Health and Coasta

A former cabinet minister denies telling a gaming investigator that members of the B.C. Liberal government knew about illegal activities at casinos and were doing little to prevent the crimes. Kash Heed told a public inquiry into money laundering that he recalls a lunch in Victoria in 2009 with former gaming investigator Fred Pinnock, but his recollection of the meeting differs from Pinnock's. Pinnock testified last fall that he met with Heed in November 2009 shortly after he was appointed solicitor general to raise concerns about large amounts of suspicious cash that were likely linked to org

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says hospitals in hard-hit regions are feeling the strain from COVID-19 infections with a record number of people in intensive care. There are 853 more cases of COVID-19 today and one new death, bringing the total in the province to 1,577. Dr. Henry also announced that 508 people are in hospital, including 178 people in an ICU. She says the province is expecting increased vaccine shipments in the coming weeks, but BC is in a tug-of-war with COVID-19, and people need to hold the line by following public health orders. Fraser Health says it is no long

Toxic drug deaths killed 158 people in British Columbia last month, pushing the total number of deaths linked in the province's overdose crisis to 498 since the start of the year. A statement releasing the figures from the BC Coroners Service and the Public Safety Ministry says the deaths in March are a 41 per cent increase over the 112 fatalities recorded in the same period last year. The deaths also mark the third consecutive month that more than five people died every day from illicit drug use in the province. The coroners service says carfentanil, which is 100 times stronger than the opio

The Liberal government is tapping former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour to lead what it says is an independent review of the military's handling of sexual assault, harassment and other misconduct. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced Arbour's appointment today, nearly three months after the government and Canadian Armed Forces were rocked by allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by the military's top commanders.Arbour, the former UN high commissioner for human rights, is being asked to help set up an independent system for victims and others to report incidents and also to re