Two more deaths among long term care residents in the Fraser Health Authority has brought B.C.’s COVID-19 death toll to 200.

Health officials are reporting 80 new cases of the virus today, although none were in the Interior Health Authority, which remains at 411 cases.

There have been 4,825 total cases in the province so far since the the pandemic began. Active cases has gone down slightly to 780 from yesterday’s 798, with 11 people in hospital, four in ICU.

Most of the new cases continue to be in young people, however, Deputy Provincial Health Officer Dr. Réka Gustafson says there was a small increase in cases among people aged 40 to 60 in the province.

“We are carefully monitoring this trend because we know the risk of severe illness goes up with age,” Gustafson said, noting that the biggest thing working against containment of the virus is indoor gatherings.

“Regardless of where we may be in our province, and what we may be doing, we have seen that indoor gatherings that are encouraging very close proximity tend to be an important source of transmission,” she said. “The two notable things about these gatherings are crowding and in some cases alcohol.”

“By continuing to work together, we can get through this. I’d like to thank you again for what you are all doing.”

There were no new healthcare outbreaks, however a Loblaws distribution centre in Surrey is the latest community outbreak in the province after nine staff members tested positive. Their close contacts have been instructed to self-isolate.

A community outbreak on Haida Gwaii has also been declared over.

There were over 4,000 tests completed in the last 24 hours – about half of B.C.’s 8,000 daily capacity, according to Health Minister Adrian Dix. He says just under two per cent of tests came back positive.

“If the public demand is 1,800 tests a day you don’t want to have people there prepared to do 5,000, you want those things to work in concert, and that’s what’s happening,” noted Dix.

A total of 3,845 people are considered to have recovered. The province also says there are now 2,574 people are now being monitored after being exposed to the virus.