The total number of patients with COVID-19 in B.C. hospitals held relatively steady on Thursday, but admissions appeared to dip for the first time since mid-June.
As of July 28 there were 401 COVID-positive patients in hospital, down five from last Thursday. There were 35 patients in ICU, an increase of five, according to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
The way B.C. reports cases includes anyone who tests positive for the virus, regardless of their reason for admissions.
The BCCDC’s Thursday update also reported 921 new cases in the week ending July 23, though the number reflects heavily restricted PCR testing, with just 12,206 tests conducted that week.
The province-wide test positivity rate sat at 11.1, down 1.7 per cent from last week’s report.
After climbing for four straight weeks, the number of people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 dropped in the week ending July 23.
The latest report counted 222 hospital admissions, 24 fewer than what was initially reported last Thursday.
Those figures are preliminary, however, and weekly admission data has been consistently revised upward significantly. For context, the BCCDC originally reported 246 COVID-19 hospital admissions between July 10 and July 16. That number has now been revised to 293, an increase of 19.1 per cent.
Like hospital admissions, weekly fatalities have also been consistently revised upward. In the previous reporting period, the BCCDC initially documented 21 deaths for the week ending July 16. That number has now been revised up to 39, an increase of 85.7 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 43 per cent of deaths initially reported under this model between April 9 and June 11 were actually caused by COVID, according to later analysis by the BCCDC.
Updated information on severe outcomes such as hospitalization and death by vaccine status is no longer being reported by the BCCDC as of July 28.
The change was reported on the center’s regional surveillance dashboard, but no explanation was given for why the data was no longer being released.
Global News is seeking an explanation for why the metric has been dropped from reporting.
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