British Columbia reported 2,441 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, along with four additional deaths as the Omicron variant continued to fuel a fifth wave of the pandemic.
The update raised BC’s seven-day average for new cases to 1,403 and left the province with at least 10,415 active cases.
Of the new cases, a staggering 959 occurred in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and 347 in the Island Health region.
Another 263 were in the Fraser Health region, 40 in the Interior Health region, and four in the Northern Health region.
However, the numbers come with some degree of uncertainty, as the province acknowledged on Friday that it had reached its testing capacity and was evaluating CRP testing for healthcare workers, the elderly and the most vulnerable.
“Our test centers are at full capacity. Yesterday we did more than 20,000 PCR tests, and that’s the most we can do, ”said provincial health official Dr. Bonnie Henry.
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“Rapid tests are now used to supplement PCR testing at many of our test sites.”
Amid the pressure on the testing system and the increasing number of cases, Henry urged anyone feeling ill with any symptoms to cancel whatever vacation plans they may have made.
There were 192 people in the hospital, a nightly decline of three, and 71 people in intensive or critical care, a nighttime decline of four.
Although hospitalization figures are considered “lagging indicators”, in the sense that they tend to rise a week or two behind the case numbers.
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Henry said the first data to emerge from countries like the UK and South Africa offer some hope that the Omicron variant could be less severe, but that it was too early to tell.
As of Friday, more than 4.3 million British Columbia residents, 87.8 percent of those eligible and 85 percent of the British Columbia population, had received at least one dose of the vaccine.
More than 4.12 million people (82.8% of those eligible and 80.1% of those eligible) have received two doses.
Another 807,000 people, 15.6 percent of the population of British Columbia, have received a third booster dose.
During the past week, leading-edge infections and the percentage of new cases increased. The 15 percent of BC residents who remain unvaccinated accounted for 20.6 percent of new cases, while 80.1 percent of fully vaccinated BC residents accounted for 78 percent of new cases.
However, the vaccine appears to have continued to provide strong protection against severe outcomes. and people who are not fully vaccinated account for 67.2% of hospitalizations.
Since the start of the pandemic, British Columbia has reported a total of 235,658 cases, while 2,414 people have died.
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