BC moves to weekly COVID 19 reporting, changes how deaths are counted | CBC News

It also says death reporting is changing to count all deaths that occurred within 30 days of a person’s positive lab result, regardless of whether the underlying cause of death was found to be related to COVID-19.

The change is the latest the province has made in its approach to handling the pandemic, which has claimed 3,004 lives to date.

‘Be able to handle ourselves now’

On Friday, British Columbians will no longer need to show their vaccination passport cards from 12:01 a.m., while the mask mandate for most indoor public spaces was lifted on March 11.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Thursday that the changes are not a sign that the pandemic is over, but rather that they are moving into a phase where people should be able to manage their risks on their own.

She said that most British Columbians have high levels of protection against serious illness due to COVID-19 due to vaccination.

“This virus is still here and it is going to be here for years and we are going to have to manage it without having to take legal or draconian measures that also have negative impacts,” he said. “It really is being able to handle ourselves now.”

Henry is asking people to monitor for symptoms, seek rapid testing and stay home if sick until symptoms are gone.

11 deaths from March 27 to April 2

Until now, whenever someone with a confirmed case of COVID-19 died, their death was reviewed to determine if the cause was infection.

The ministry says the new “broader definition” means some deaths will be reported that are not actually caused by COVID-19.

It says that the reports will be published in the BC Center for Disease Control (BCCDC) website on Thursdays with data from Sunday to the previous Saturday.

There is likely to be a one-time increase in the number of people ever hospitalized with the move to “larger administrative data,” he says.

Information on COVID-19 cases will be based on a person’s first molecular or PCR test through the province’s medical services plan, the ministry bulletin said.

The first weekly report covering March 27 to April 2 shows that 11 people died, a measure of “30-day all-cause mortality”, while 193 people were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 and a total of 1,706 new cases were confirmed during that time.

By comparison, there were 13 reported deaths from March 20-26 and 20 deaths from March 13-19, under the new reporting system.

From March 20 to 26, there were 220 hospital admissions for COVID-19.

The weekly report said the number of deaths recorded between March 27 and April 2 is expected to rise as more data becomes available.

On Thursday, the BCCDC reported on its COVID-19 Dashboard that 324 people in the hospital, four patients less than the day before and 38 people in the ICU, an increase of one.

Sewage levels rise, vaccines slow

Meanwhile, levels of COVID-19 transmission detected in wastewater samples at four of the five Metro Vancouver treatment plants increased, continuing a trend seen in the second half of March.

Levels remained 72 percent to 90 percent lower than those detected during Omicron’s transmission peak in January.

The number of new vaccines being distributed is slowing, with the number of third vaccines distributed increasing by less than one percent over the past week for a total of 53.76 percent of eligible British Columbians receiving a third dose from April 6.

Earlier this week, the government announced that it will distribute fourth doses to people over 70 and other vulnerable groups.