Nearly all indicators tracking the COVID-19 pandemic have fallen in British Columbia in the past week, according to new data from the provincial government.
The 273 people in the hospitals in BC with COVID-19 are at least since March 26, when there were 260 and the province provided daily updates. Of the patients to date, 28 are in intensive care units. This is up by nine and is the only major indicator of an increase.
COVID-19 deaths continue to accumulate, but the 26 alleged COVID-19 deaths in the past week are almost half of the 50 such deaths reported a week ago. This total weekly number of deaths is until June 18. It includes anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 within 30 days and then died. This calculation may include people who tested positive and then died in car accidents.
The process for the British Columbia government is to initially include these deaths and then have the Vital Statistics Agency determine which deaths are not COVID-19-related and remove them from the total.
As has been the case in every weekly update, since the government switched to providing data only once a week, the estimated number of COVID-19 deaths has increased by more than the number of new COVID-19 deaths. This is the opposite of what provincial health official Dr. Bonnie Henry said would happen when she unveiled the new system in early April.
COVID-19 deaths in British Columbia rose by 40 in the week ended June 18, despite 26 new deaths. When Glacier Media asked the British Columbia Department of Health about the continuing differences in the weekly total number of deaths from COVID-19 and the total number of deaths, an official said the reason was that the total number of deaths was “approximate“
The province now estimates that 3,722 people have died from COVID-19 in British Columbia since the first death was announced on March 9, 2020, a man in his 80s who lived at a Lynn Valley care center in North Vancouver.
The Centers for Disease Control in British Columbia detected 642 new infections with COVID-19 in the week ending June 18. This is the lowest weekly total since the province switched to weekly updates on April 7th. This increases the number of known COVID-19 infections in BC to 373,974 since the first case was discovered in late January 2020.
However, data on new infections have long been widely dismissed, and even Henry earlier this year called the information “inaccurate.” This is because in December, she began telling people who had been vaccinated and had mild symptoms not to be tested and simply to isolate themselves. She then said that this should increase the testing capacity of those with more severe symptoms and those who are more vulnerable.
Testing is now encouraged only in cases where knowing the test result may change treatment recommendations.
The 12,215 tests for COVID-19 conducted in British Columbia in the week ending June 18 were also the fewest tests performed one week after the transition to weekly data reporting. The decline in weekly tests was particularly sharp last week, with more than a third fewer tests performed than last week’s 18,397 tests, the fewest tests since the introduction of weekly data updates.
The percentage of positive tests in the province rose to 5.26% in the week ended June 18, compared to 3.95% in the week ended June 11, which was the lowest since the beginning of weekly reporting.
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