Advertisement

COVID-19 hospitalizations remain steady compared to last week, 17 more deaths recorded

A man wearing a face mask is pictured with luggage in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia in April.  (Ben Nelms/CBC - image credit)
A man wearing a face mask is pictured with luggage in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia in April. (Ben Nelms/CBC - image credit)

Another 17 people died in B.C. last week after testing positive for COVID-19, according to the province's latest reports on the pandemic.

As of Thursday, 273 people are in hospital with the novel coronavirus — the same as the week before. There are 32 in intensive care, according to the B.C. COVID-19 dashboard, up 14 per cent from last week.

The government says its weekly report numbers are preliminary. It has been retroactively adjusting them due to delays in the count and the new way in which it measures weekly cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

The numbers released Thursday are part of an approach from B.C. health officials started earlier this year, both in the move to weekly reporting and in how certain metrics are calculated.

As vaccination efforts continue, provincial statistics show more than 48,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered from June 19 to 25.

As of June 25, roughly 2.8 million British Columbians have received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 370,000 people have received a fourth dose.

Other data related to the pandemic is available in a report from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, which tracks cases, hospital admissions and deaths between June 19 and 25.

It shows that 620 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in that time, based solely on lab-reported results, for a total of 374,594 cases to date. More than 40 per cent of the new recorded cases were in the Fraser Health region.

The report shows that the number of new cases is down slightly by about three per cent from 642 in the previous week. However, because testing is now quite limited, the province cautions that the case count underestimates the true number of people with COVID-19 in B.C.

A total of 169 people were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 from June 19 to 25, according to the BCCDC, nearly half of them in the Fraser Health region.

Test positivity rates highest on Vancouver Island

According to the latest weekly report, 17 more people died between June 19 and 25, a figure that is being reported in a very different way from in the past.

Those deaths include everyone who died within 30 days of testing positive for COVID-19, whether or not the virus has been confirmed as an underlying cause of death. Previously, each death was investigated to determine if COVID-19 was a cause.

Test positivity rates are down slightly, hitting an average 7.5 per cent provincewide on Saturday, compared to 7.6 per cent the previous week.

Positivity rates range from as high as 14 per cent in the Vancouver Island to as low as 6.2 per cent in the Fraser Health region, according to the province's dashboard. The province administered more than 12,000 tests in the last reported week.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has said anything above a five per cent test-positivity rate is an indicator of a more worrying level of transmission.