British Columbia reported another six COVID-19 related deaths on Wednesday, with the number of cases in hospital holding relatively steady.
Health officials said there were 276 cases in hospital, an overnight increase of three, including 43 cases in critical or intensive care.
Cases in hospital have fluctuated within the 250-300 range over the past week, after declining steadily since the end of January.
Officials also confirmed 291 new cases, however the true spread of the virus has become difficult to gauge since access to PCR testing was curtailed in December.
There were seven ongoing outbreaks in health-care settings,
As of Wednesday, 87.9 per cent of B.C.’s population (90.8 per cent of those eligible) have received one dose of vaccine, 84.5 per cent of B.C.’s population (87.3 per cent of those eligible) have received two doses, and 49.7 per cent of B.C.’s population (59.3 per cent of those eligible) had received three doses.
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People with two or more doses accounted for 82.3 per cent of cases over the past week and 79.6 per cent of cases in hospital over the past two weeks.
However, monthly B.C. CDC data continues to show unvaccinated people at a significantly higher risk of severe outcomes.
From Feb. 26 to March 25, per 100,000 population, among unvaccinated people there were 64.8 cases in hospital, 11.3 unvaccinated cases in ICU and 6.8 deaths, compared to 26.3 cases in hospital, 4.1 cases in ICU and 2.8 deaths among people with two or more doses.
Since the start of the pandemic, B.C. has reported 356,226 total cases, while 2,396 people have died.