COVID-19: Cases in hospital dip, but admissions rise for 4th straight week

The total number of patients with COVID-19 in B.C. hospitals dropped Thursday, but hospital admissions climbed for the fourth consecutive week.

As of July 21 there were 406 COVID-positive patients in hospital, a drop of 20 over last Thursday, and the first decline since mid-June. There were 30 patients in ICU, a drop of four, according to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

The BCCDC’s Thursday update also reported 1,044 new cases in the week ending July 16. PCR testing remains heavily restricted, however, with just over 11,000 tests conducted that week.

The province-wide test positivity rate sat at 12.8 per cent, the highest it has been since mid-February.

The week ending July 16 was also the fourth straight week of increasing COVID-19 hospital admissions.

The latest report counted 246 hospital admissions, the most since late May, and 35 more than what was initially reported last Thursday.

Those figures are preliminary, and weekly admission data has been consistently revised upward significantly. For context, the BCCDC originally reported 211 COVID-19 hospital admissions between July 3 and July 9. That number has now been revised to 262, an increase of 24.1 per cent.

Thursday’s update also reported 21 deaths in the week ending July 16.

Like hospital admissions, weekly fatalities have also been consistently revised upward. In the previous reporting period, the BCCDC initially documented 22 deaths for the week ending July 9. That number has now been revised up to 29, an increase of 31.8 per cent.

Further complicating the matter, the province counts deaths from all causes for that week, if the person tested positive for COVID-19 at any time in the 30 days prior, a model officials acknowledge overestimates COVID fatalities.

About 44 per cent of deaths initially reported under this model between April 9 and June 4 were actually caused by COVID, according to later analysis by the BCCDC.

Between May 22 and July 16, unvaccinated British Columbians were nearly twice as likely to end up in hospital or die from COVID-19, and nearly three times as likely to end up in the ICU, than people with three or more doses, on a per-capita basis.