COVID-19 outbreak declared at Kelowna General Hospital

For the first time in more than a month, Kelowna General Hospital has declared a COVID-19 outbreak.

An Interior Health representative said there are 20 cases connected to the outbreak in the rehab unit that started on April 12.

The only other two health-care facilities currently experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak are Kamloops care homes.

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The BC Centre for Disease Control indicates that as of April 14, there were 80 people hospitalized in Interior Health with COVID-19, with six of those in critical care.

Provincewide, there were 364 cases in hospital as of Thursday, including 36 cases in ICU. The number of cases in hospital is now 43 per cent higher than the 2022 low of 254 on March 22.

B.C. no longer offers daily COVID-19 updates.

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B.C.’s Ministry of Health said earlier this month it was moving to a “surveillance” approach to data reporting that mirrored other respiratory illnesses like the flu, which it said was focused on “identifying meaningful changes in COVID-19 trends over time across different regions of the province.”

2:16 KGH overwhelmed with surge in Omicron

The change comes as some experts, including the B.C. COVID-19 modeling group, warns the province is in the early stages of a sixth, Omicron BA.2 variant-driven wave of the pandemic. They have called for more comprehensive and timelier data updates.

Since the start of the pandemic, British Columbia has reported a total of 359,002 cases, 20,220 hospital admissions and 3,036 deaths.

— with files from Simon Little