The Skeena
More than half of eligible adults in Smithers have received at least their first vaccine shot, a major milestone in the city’s fight against COVID. Among adults above age 50, the figure rises to more than 70 percent.
Province-wide, about 59 percent of adults have received their first dose.
Those high vaccine numbers are helping the Skeena, and the province, fight back against the coronavirus.
“New daily cases of COVID-19 have been dropping significantly since they peaked in late March,” the Interior News reports. “B.C. is now reporting about a third of the cases it was at that time.”
Indeed, at one point earlier in the spring the province was reporting a 7-day moving average of more than 1300 cases. That’s now down to less than 500, according to data in the British Columbia COVID-19 Dashboard.
The numbers out of Smithers are also encouraging, because in some parts of the province vaccine hesitancy has been a problem. In Fort St. John, for example, only 30 percent of eligible adults have received their first vaccine dose.
But the data overall is promising. More than 63 percent of adults aged 18 to 79 are registered to get vaccinated. “So far, so good,” Dr. Matthew Chow, president of the Doctors of B.C., told Global News.
