B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry held a press conference Friday providing an update on the ongoing respiratory illness season and the province’s immunization campaign.
Dr. Bonnie Henry said over the past couple of weeks there has been a slight rise in respiratory illnesses, especially among children, according to tests at the BC Children’s Hospital.
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) levels in B.C. children are a “little” higher than pre-pandemic levels but nothing close to what the province experienced last year, Henry said.
The new “updated” vaccines for both influenza and COVID-19 have been arriving in B.C. since early September and have continued throughout October.
According to Henry, more than 1 million influenza vaccines have been administered to British Columbians so far this season and more than 840,000 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, as well.
She issued another warning to those choosing to not get vaccinated or have not been able to get vaccinated yet.
“Unvaccinated people, at any age, (still) remain at greatest and highest risk of having more severe illness, ending up in hospitals and, we know as well, the potential of having long COVID after infection,” she said.
Adrian Dix lauded B.C.’s response to the government’s requests to get vaccinated, as he said B.C. is leading all provinces in immunizations.
The Ministry of Health said it has continued to monitor wastewater for illness levels. Henry said there has been a slight increase in traces of COVID-19 over the past few weeks but it has “leveled off.”
Dix said the government is expecting and preparing for a possible rise in hospitalizations for all seasonal illnesses and COVID-19.
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“We are, as one health system with all health authority partners, coming together to ensure people are getting the care they need,” Dix said.
Although Henry and Dix said COVID-19 levels are relatively low across the province, a COVID-19 outbreak has been reported at a Victoria-area hospital.
Island Health says in a statement the outbreak was declared Thursday at the centre unit of Saanich Peninsula Hospital, with 15 patients infected and all experiencing mild illness.
There are also ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks at Abbotsford Regional and Chilliwack General hospitals in the Fraser Health region.
Some municipalities, such as Surrey, are already preparing for a possible surge in patients.
Surrey recently deployed a portable building to Surrey Memorial Hospital, which will be used as a “temporary pediatric emergency waiting area” to “prepare for potential surges in pediatric volumes this winter.”
“This waiting area will provide a sense of comfort, care and reassurance to all children and their family members, during this stop on their care journey,” Fraser Health said in a statement.
Fraser Health said the COVID-19 pandemic and previous surges, including for youth with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), have shown the need to prepare for the possibility of higher volumes.
“We’re taking these steps in advance, so that we’re ready, and I think that’s what people want to see — they want to see us preparing,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said regarding the portable.
“And if it’s the case that respiratory season is not as serious, although the southern hemisphere indicates we’re going to have a challenging year, then those preparations aren’t necessary.”
Even with the government’s concerns, new data suggest that a recent surge in COVID-19 activity in British Columbia appears to be waning, with the number of hospital admissions, deaths and positive tests all down sharply.
An update released by the BC Centre for Disease Control on Thursday says there were 144 new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the week ending Nov. 4, fewer than half the 296 hospitalizations three weeks earlier.
Among those tested for COVID-19 under the province’s medical services plan, positive tests dropped to 15.8 per cent, compared with a peak of 23.4 per cent five weeks earlier.
There were 36 deaths among people with COVID-19 last week, down from a peak of 70 two weeks earlier, although the centre for disease control cautions the information in both weeks is preliminary and says deaths “remain relatively stable.”
The centre says in a summary of the data that COVID-19 activity appears to have peaked in early October.
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— with files from Simon Little and The Canadian Press
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