British Columbia reported another 17 COVID-19-related deaths on Friday, as the number of people in hospital fell to its lowest point in more than three weeks.
Health officials reported 846 positive cases in hospitals, an overnight drop of 21, including 136 people in critical or intensive care.
B.C. officials confirmed another 1,245 new cases, however daily case counts no longer provide an accurate metric of the virus’ spread due to testing limitations. The province stopped releasing a daily count of active cases on Thursday, citing similar reasoning.
As of Friday, 87.4 per cent of B.C.’s population (90.3 per cent of those eligible) had received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, 82.2 per cent of B.C.’s population (85 per cent of those eligible) had received two doses and 46.3 per cent of B.C.’s population (51.5 per cent of those eligible) had received three doses.
Fully vaccinated people accounted for 76.3 per cent of new cases over the past week and 68.7 per cent of cases in hospital over the past two weeks.
But data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control from Jan. 08 to Feb. 04 continues to show unvaccinated people remain at substantially higher risk of severe outcomes.
Per 100,000 population, among unvaccinated people there were 198 cases in hospital, 40.4 cases in ICU and 19.3 deaths, compared to 70 cases in hospital, 11.5 in ICU and 5.4 deaths among fully vaccinated people.
Earlier Friday, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the government would unveil changes to COVID-19-related border restrictions next week, saying “the worst is behind us” in regards to the Omicron variant-driven fifth wave of the pandemic.
Since the start of the pandemic, B.C. has reported a total of 338,792 cases, while 2,747 people have died.