B.C. reports fewest COVID-19 cases in hospital since March 2022

The number of patients with COVID-19 in B.C. hospitals fell to its lowest point since March of last year, B.C. Centre for Disease Control data showed Thursday.

As of Jan. 19, there were 268 positive cases in B.C. hospitals, down 34 from last Thursday and the fewest since March 27, 2022. There were 17 cases in critical care, down eight from last week and the fewest since July 2021.

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

Officials did not provide an update on the spread of the XBB1.5 variant.

For the week ending Jan. 14, the seven-day rolling average for test positivity provincewide fell to 12.9 per cent, down from 14.2 the week prior.

Test positivity held reasonably flat in the Fraser Health and Island Health regions, while it fell by more than six per cent in the Interior Health region and by just over one per cent in the Vancouver Coastal Health region. Positivity climbed by three per cent in the Northern Health region.

Lab testing, however, remains severely restricted in B.C., focusing on only the most high-risk groups. For the week ending Dec. 14, 2022, British Columbia performed fewer than 6,000 tests.

For the week ending Jan. 14, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) reported 142 new hospital admissions. This figure is preliminary and typically increased by more than 20 per cent the following week.

The BCCDC reported 27 new deaths for the week ending Jan. 14, though this figure tells an incomplete story.

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Like hospital admissions, the number is typically revised upward the following week. However, B.C.’s fatality model counts all deaths that occur within 30 days of a person’s first positive COVID-19 test, which officials admit overcounts fatalities.

Subsequent analysis has found fewer than four in 10 deaths reported this way since April were actually caused by COVID. Determining the true cause of death takes about eight weeks.

Of the 1,973 “COVID-19 deaths” the province has reported this way since the start of April 2022, just 754 were eventually found to have been caused by COVID. Another 984 were not caused by the virus and 235 remained under investigation.

The BCCDC’s latest situation report shows that 88.3 per cent of those actual COVID-19 deaths were among people aged 70 and older, while just eight deaths were among people under the age of 50

That same report confirmed at least 72 COVID-19 deaths between Oct. 23 and Nov. 19, 2022, an average of about 2.2 per day.