The City of Delta leads the way in the Fraser Health Authority when it comes to its residents having had a COVID-19 vaccine.
According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, as of Sept. 7, the number of eligible people 12 and older who received a first dose of vaccine in Delta was at 91 per cent, while those who had a second dose was 84 per cent. The number of people 50 and older in Delta who had two doses was at 89 per cent.
Also according the BCCDC, Delta had 55 new cases between Aug. 29 and Sept. 4, down from the previous week.
Meanwhile, the latest numbers had Surrey at 311 new cases, Langley at 557, Abbotsford at 155, Richmond at 68, Burnaby at 216 and Vancouver at 465 for the week.
The BCCDC’s cumulative map of cases, covering the period from Jan. 2020 to the end of Aug. 2021, indicates Delta had 5,156 COVID-19 cases, while Richmond had 4,489 cases and Surrey had 38,856 total confirmed cases.
As far as students returning to school this week, and the Delta School District’s Communicable Disease Prevention Plan released last week, the Delta Teacher’s Association president Susan Yao said the Delta plan is in keeping with provincial regulations and current health orders.
However, while the Delta School District encourages students in kindergarten through grade 3 to wear masks, it is not part of the provincial health order.
“The DTA would like this added measure of security for all students and teachers in order to reduce risks of COVID-19 transmission. Since COVID-19 is mainly spread through respiratory droplets, the use of masks in classrooms from K to 12 means a safer working and learning environment for all. Why the Provincial Health Office has not included younger children in the mask mandate is troubling and a source of anxiety for many educators,” Yao told the Optimist.
“While the District notes the high vaccination rate in Delta, children under 12 are not vaccinated, and may transmit the disease. Therefore, the DTA’s message to the public is that they do all that they can to prevent the spread of COVID-19 especially in light of the current rise in number of cases, particularly the Delta variant. Minimizing the spread of COVID-19 also has the potential to limit the rise of new variants. Recent data from the BCCDC indicates that the city of Delta has the highest vaccination rates in Fraser Health, an encouraging statistic.”
