British Columbia is reporting an increase of 85 COVID-19 cases in hospital and nine in intensive care over the last week.
According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, there were 570 cases in hospital and 47 cases in critical or intensive care as of Thursday.
The figures represent a 17.5 per cent increase in hospitalizations and a 23.6 per cent increase in cases in ICU over the previous week.
Thursday’s update also confirmed 2,276 new cases over the past week. However, just 26,872 PCR tests were conducted over that period, meaning the figure is likely a significant underrepresentation of the virus’ spread.
British Columbia’s new weekly data reporting regime also provides information on hospital admissions, though with a one-week delay.
According to the BCCDC, 335 people were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 between April 17 and April 23.
Of them, 150 were in the Fraser Health authority, 65 were in the Interior Health authority, 20 were in the Northern Health authority, 58 were in the Vancouver Coastal Health authority and 62 were in the Vancouver Island Health authority.
The BCCDC says the hospital admissions figures are expected to rise as it collects more data — for example, the province-wide admissions total initially reported last week has since been revised up to 300 from 238.
Officials also recorded 42 fatalities over the last week.
However B.C. is now reporting the deaths of anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 over the last month, which officials acknowledge will overestimate fatalities.
Monthly BCCDC data continued to show unvaccinated people at a higher risk of severe outcomes.
From March 27 to April 23, per 100,000 population, there were 47.6 cases of unvaccinated people in hospitals, 7.8 unvaccinated cases in the ICU and 4.9 deaths, compared to 21.7 cases in hospitals, 2.9 cases in the ICU and 3.1 deaths among people with three doses.
Since the start of the pandemic, British Columbia has reported a total of 363,302 cases and 3,147 deaths.