The number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals in BC has more than doubled since the end of March, with 570 hospitalized as of Thursday. At that time, there were 485 patients in hospital last week. On March 31, there were 281.
The number of patients in critical care has also increased from 38 last Thursday to 47 this week.
The number of patients with COVID-19 in hospital on Thursday each week since the province began including all patients with a positive test in the number of hospitalizations in January 2022 is shown in this chart by CTV News.
The total number of hospitalizations included both those who had a serious illness caused by COVID-19 and those who were admitted to hospital for other reasons and accidentally tested positive.
Since the province began this “hospital census” approach in January, the highest point for hospital patients on Thursday was 985, which BC reached in early February. The total number of weekly hospitalizations reached its lowest level of 255 at the end of last month.
Thursday’s update comes as independent modelers say the delayed and limited statistics released by the province make it “difficult to do anything useful” with the data.
DELAYED AND REVISED WEEKLY DATA
Ongoing hospitalizations and critical care admissions are the only up-to-date information the province shares in its weekly update every Thursday.
Other data provided relate to the last full epidemiological week, which ended five days earlier. And even these numbers are subject to revision in future updates.
This Thursday, for example, the Center for Disease Control in British Columbia reported that there were 355 new hospitalizations with COVID-19 across the province from 17 to 23 April. This number is “expected to increase as the data becomes more complete,” says the BCCDC.
Last week, the BCCDC reported 238 new hospitalizations for the week of April 10-16. In this week’s update, that number has been revised to 300.
The deaths are a similar story. Last week’s report showed 27 deaths related to COVID-19 from April 10 to 16, with the proviso that the total number is expected to rise.
This week, the total for April 10-16 was revised to 52, and the total for the previous week – April 3 to 9 – was changed to 40, from 37 during last week’s report and 23 when it was initially reported on 14 April
It should be noted that reported total deaths are considered as censuses. They describe “30 days of all-cause mortality”, which means that anyone who dies within 30 days of passing a COVID-19 test is included in the total, even if COVID-19 is not what they are. has killed.
“All-cause mortality is used, as it takes approximately eight weeks to register the cause of death,” the BCCDC explained in its weekly reports.
“Retrospective estimates of the underlying cause of death will be made by the BCCDC, in addition to the data provided in this report to better understand true mortality from COVID-19.”
TRENDS IN DATA
Although the weekly data comes with many warnings, the trend it illustrates is clear. The number of people in the hospital continues to grow and the number of new hospitalizations each week continues to start from a higher point than the previous week and is being revised upwards, as is the number of deaths.
The number of newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 from 17 to 23 April was 2276, an increase of 2036 reported for the previous week.
These totals only include “laboratory-confirmed, laboratory-probable, and epi-related cases”, according to the BCCDC. Infections confirmed by rapid antigen testing – the only test method available to most British Colombians – are not tracked, which means that the true number of coronavirus cases in the province cannot be known.
However, monitoring wastewater in the lower continent may indicate trends, and four of the five treatment plants in the region have been showing rising virus concentrations for at least five weeks, according to the BCCDC’s weekly “situation report”.
The fifth wastewater treatment plant in the region reported an “increased” viral load, but did not show a clear trend.
All this leads to the sixth wave of the pandemic in British Columbia, which is still growing. An increase in transmission has been expected with the end of almost all public health orders in recent months, and British Columbia health officials have said that returning mandates for masks or other rules would be a “last resort”.
VACCINATION DATA
One of the reasons officials said they were reluctant to use public health orders to limit the spread of COVID-19 was antibodies developed by BC residents through vaccination and previous infection.
Although this resistance to the coronavirus has not prevented people from becoming infected or re-infected, it has reduced the severity of the disease for those who do.
As of Thursday, 91% of those aged five and over in British Columbia had received at least the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 88% had received two doses. Sixty percent of adults received an additional injection.
The province administered 33,954 doses of vaccine during the week of April 17-23, most of them boosters.
Out of a total of 2145 were first doses and 4449 were second doses. The others were third or fourth shots.
The province offers fourth doses – a second booster – to people who are considered clinically extremely vulnerable to COVID-19, long-term carers and those aged 70 and over.
Very few people under the age of 50 have died from COVID-19 in BC BCCDC data show that only 107 of the 3,098 deaths attributed to COVID-19 on April 16 were among people under the age of 50.
More than half of all deaths in the province at that date (1793) were among those aged 80 and over, and the average age for all COVID-19-related deaths in British Columbia on 16 April was 82.
Looking at the vaccination status results for those aged 70 and over in the BCCDC COVID-19 dashboard, it is clear that both unvaccinated adults and those who received the additional vaccine are still vulnerable to COVID -19.
The risk of hospitalization or death is higher for those in the age group who have not been vaccinated.
As the reinforced group is far superior to the unvaccinated group, it also represents more deaths and hospitalizations in general.
However, if we look at the death rate and hospitalization per 100,000 people, it is clear that the unvaccinated are more at risk.
Unvaccinated BC residents aged 70 and over were hospitalized at a rate of 146 per 100,000 between March 27 and April 23, while reinforced people in the same age group were hospitalized at a rate of 97 per 100,000.
Similarly, unvaccinated people aged 70 and over died at a rate of 32 per 100,000, compared with 17 per 100,000 among those with three doses of vaccine in the same age group.
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