COVID-19 cases in B.C. hospitals hit one-month low

The number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 hit a one-month low this week, as test positivity dropped in several B.C. regions.

As of Dec. 22, there were 349 positive cases in hospital, the fewest since Nov. 24. The number of cases in critical care climbed by four from last week to 35, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC).

The province’s hospitalization model counts all cases in hospitals, regardless of the patient’s initial reason for admission.

B.C. continues to restrict lab testing to those at the most severe risk, meaning true case numbers are unknown.

The province conducted just under 7,000 tests for the week ending Dec. 17, which showed the seven-day moving average of provincewide test-positivity rate falling to 10.7 per cent.

Positivity edged upward slightly in the Vancouver Coastal Health region (from 10.1 per cent to 10.5 per cent), while test positivity fell in the Fraser Health region (form 12 per cent to 10 per cent), Interior Health region (from 15.9 per cent to 12.3 per cent) and Island Health region (from 14.9 per cent to 13.1 per cent).

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For the week ending Dec. 17, the BCCDC reported 167 new COVID-19 hospital admissions, though this number is preliminary and typically revised upward by more than 20 per cent the following week.

As always, determining the number of people actually dying from COVID-19 remains a major challenge with currently available data.

The BCCDC reported 22 deaths for the week ending Dec. 17, however, this number is fraught with caveats.

Like hospital admissions, it is typically revised upward significantly the following week. However, health officials admit it significantly overcounts fatalities, because it includes anyone who died within 30 days of their first positive COVID-19 test.

Subsequent review has found only about four in 10 deaths counted this way were actually caused by COVID-19 — a process that takes about eight weeks.

Of the 1,777 “COVID-19 deaths” the province has reported this way since the start of April, just 716 were later determined to have been caused by the virus, while 924 were not and 137 remain under investigation.

The BCCDC’s latest situation report shows that 88.5 per cent of those actual COVID-19 deaths were among people aged 70 and older.

That same report confirmed at least 86 COVID-19 deaths between Sept. 25 and Oct. 22, an average of about 3.07 per day.