There are 314 people in the hospital with COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to the BCCDC, a 3 percent drop from the previous week. Hospitalizations from COVID-19 have been on a general downward trend since late July. Twenty-three patients are in intensive care, a number higher than last Thursday. The province also reported 16 more deaths between September 4 and 10, bringing the total to 4,216. The government’s weekly numbers, which it says are preliminary, often change retrospectively because of delays in counting and the new way the province counts weekly cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Deaths are now counted based on whether they occurred within 30 days of a positive COVID-19 test and whether or not coronavirus has been confirmed as the underlying cause of death. The center says it will assess each person’s cause of death retrospectively to better understand “true mortality from COVID-19.” Last week, the province reported 22 deaths between August 28 and September 3. This number was subsequently revised upwards to 36. The numbers released Thursday are part of an approach by BC health officials that began in April, when the province switched to weekly reporting of COVID-19 numbers and changed how some metrics are calculated. There were 574 new cases reported from September 4 to 10, a decrease of almost seven per cent from the previous reporting period, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in BC to 383,628. The province says the number likely underestimates the true number of cases as more people are testing themselves and there are fewer lab tests. The seven-day rolling average for the rate at which people are testing positive is 7 percent as of Sept. 10, according to the BCDC dashboard, the lowest since mid-June. The District Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said anything above 5% is a general indicator of ongoing transmission in the community. The BC Center for Disease Control says the overall trend shows stable SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in Metro Vancouver’s wastewater.
Vaccination requirements still apply to healthcare workers
The latest figures came on Thursday as the K.B.E. government. issued a bulletin saying that vaccination requirements against COVID-19 still apply to all workers in the health care system, including hospital, community and institutional workers. The requirement does not apply to regulated professionals who do not work in these settings, such as dentists, naturopaths and opticians. The Department of Health statement added that the spread of disease is expected to increase again this autumn and winter and the possibility of another worrying variant of COVID-19 “remains a real concern”.
Henry on COVID-19 and children in BC
Henry said the findings of a study she authored that showed children and youth had the highest rates of COVID-19 in areas of the province should not be interpreted as indicating that these infections occurred primarily in schools. Henry has been criticized by some parents, advocacy groups and health professionals who say there has been a significant increase in infections during the school year among children under 10. They say measures such as covering all students and upgrading air filtration in schools could have been taken earlier to protect children in classrooms from a virus known to be airborne. However, Henry says some young people were infected when they were ineligible for a vaccine, and illness among people under 19 was comparable to community transmission. He says the findings of the study, which has not been peer-reviewed and was published online last week, are similar to those in other jurisdictions where schools have been closed for much longer than in B.C. The study ranks Henry among 13 experts who say a series of surveillance reports on infections from the start of the pandemic to August of this year show that at least 70 to 80 percent of young people in Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley are infected with COVID-19. .
