COVID-19: Case Count Rising Rapidly in Under 10s in British Columbia, While Decreasing in Older Age Groups

“We need to get ahead of this,” says data expert Jens von Bergmann. “That little advantage that the age group used to have, there was some consensus that they broadcast a little less, it’s just not enough anymore.”

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COVID-19 cases in BC are growing rapidly in the under-nine category, while declining in other age groups, according to data from mathematician Jens von Bergmann.

Von Bergmann, who is part of the BC COVID-19 Modeling Group, said he started noticing the trend last Wednesday and that it had accelerated.

“It’s better to look at trends, and the trend line has never been higher,” said von Bergmann, who uses daily case counts provided by the BC Center for Disease Control (BCCDC) by age group and data from BC Stats age group. to arrive at one case per 100,000 for each age group.

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“In general, we are quite happy that the cases are decreasing, but if we have an age group that is constantly growing and growing, in this case the unvaccinated age group, then that is becoming a problem. Right now the numbers are still pretty low, but when things grow like this it becomes an exponential process. This is how a virus replicates. “

Case numbers released Thursday by the BCCDC show that children under the age of nine accounted for 17 percent of the 832 new cases reported, and they occurred one day after at least 40 COVID exposure advisories were issued in schools. from BC and Promontory Heights Elementary School in Chilliwack. was closed to in-person learning until October after infection in class for the past 10 days.

There was also a record number of COVID tests performed in British Columbia on Wednesday (17,965) and on Thursday afternoon people who arrived at the Abbotsford COVID testing site were rejected, despite having an appointment. Staff at the test site told them they had been overwhelmed by people coming to get tested, including many from Chilliwack. About 9,200 of the record tests conducted Wednesday were conducted at Fraser Health.

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“We need to get ahead of this,” von Bergmann said. “That small advantage that the age group used to have, there was some consensus that they broadcast a little less, it just isn’t enough anymore.”

He said the BCCDC needed to examine the cases of people aged five to eight and nine to 11 years to see if the mask mandates are working. At the moment, children between the ages of five and eight do not have to wear a mask to school, while older children do.

“Is there a difference? If there is maybe we should mask everyone. If there isn’t and both are coming up, think of better masks or other interventions to stop this,” von Bergmann said.

There are 5,696 active cases of the disease in the province and 330 people hospitalized, including 148 in intensive care.

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The British Columbia Ministry of Health does not include in its hospital case count people who were admitted to hospital sick with COVID who are no longer contagious but are still hospitalized, generally or in ICU beds.

Fraser Health is now the COVID hot spot in British Columbia, accounting for 45 percent of Wednesday cases.

Meanwhile, provincial health official Dr. Bonnie Henry has not yet officially released a promised mandate on vaccinating acute care workers. The mandate requires all healthcare workers in acute settings to be fully vaccinated by October 26, meaning unvaccinated workers don’t have enough time to get vaccinated before that deadline and will not be able to work.

– With files from Glenda Luymes

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