B.C. records 1,270 new cases of COVID-19 and 16 more deaths over 3 days

B.C. health officials announced 1,270 new cases of COVID-19 and 16 more deaths over the weekend.

In a written statement, the provincial government said there are currently 3,837active cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus in B.C.

The breakdown of new cases is as follows:

• Nov. 12-13: 502 new cases
• Nov. 13-14: 387 new cases
• Nov. 14-15: 381 new cases

A total of 376people are in hospital, with116in intensive care.

Overall hospitalizations, which typically lag behind spikes and dips in new cases, aredownby nearly seven per cent from last Monday, when 407people were in hospital with the disease.

The number of patients in intensive care isdownby about fourper cent from 121a week ago.

The provincialdeath toll from COVID-19is now 2,273lives lost out of 213,020 confirmed cases to date.

The regional breakdown of new cases is as follows:

• 417new cases in Fraser Health, which has 1,325 total active cases.
• 275new cases in Interior Health, which has 762 total active cases.
• 274new cases in Northern Health, which has 641 total active cases.
• 183new cases in Island Health, which has 576 total active cases.
• 121new cases in Vancouver Coastal Health, which has 474 total active cases.
• There are nonew cases among people who reside outside of Canada, a group which has 59total active cases.

There are a total of 23 active outbreaks in assisted living, long-term, and acute care facilities.

Acute care outbreaksinclude:

• Queen's Park Care Centre
• Abbotsford Regional Hospital
• Burnaby Hospital
• Royal Inland Hospital
• Bulkley Valley District Hospital
• Nanaimo Regional General Hospital

As of Monday, 90.7 per cent of those 12 and older in B.C. have received their first dose of aCOVID-19 vaccineand 86.8 per cent asecond dose.

From Nov. 5to 11, people who were not fully vaccinated accounted for 60.2 per cent of cases and from Oct. 29,they accounted for 66.9 per cent of hospitalizations, according to the province.

So far, 8.4million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, including over fourmillion second doses.

Conservatives call for audit ofpandemic benefits

The Conservative Party of Canada is calling on the Canada Revenue Agency to launch an audit to determine how organized crime groups got a piece of the federal government's pandemic benefits.

As CBC News reported late last week, individual criminals and organized crime groups appeared to have "knowingly and actively" defrauded the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) program.

According to recently obtained documents, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) the country's financial intelligence wing observed that during the first few months of the CERB program, criminal organizations filed multiple applications using stolen identities.

In a letter to their cabinet counterparts, Conservative National Revenue critic Jake Stewart and Public Safety critic Raquel Dancho called on the government to pinpointthe cause of the fraud and implement better safeguards.

FINTRAC said that since the start of 2020, until Oct. 31 of this year, it received 30,095 suspicious transaction reports in whichCOVID-related benefits were mentioneda small percentage of the overall reports.