Another 50 people died in BC last week after testing positive for COVID-19, but there are signs in weekly reports from the province that the latest wave of the pandemic has begun to recede.
After rising for weeks following the end of indoor mask requirements and the vaccine passport program, the number of patients in the hospital has started to decline, with sewage testing numbers showing a similar trend.
As of Thursday, 550 people are hospitalized with the new coronavirus, including 39 in intensive care, according to the BC COVID-19 board.
That’s a 3.5 percent decline in overall hospitalizations since last Thursday, when the province reported 570 people in hospital. The number of ICU patients is down 17 percent from 47 a week ago.
Testing of wastewater at treatment plants representing 50 percent of BC’s population shows that, for the first time in six weeks, viral loads were stable or declining in three of five locations as of April 30, according to weekly status report of the province.
Other data related to the pandemic is available in a report from the BC Center for Disease Control (BCCDC), which tracks cases, hospital admissions and deaths between April 24 and 30.
It shows that 2,283 new cases of COVID-19 were reported at that time, based solely on reported laboratory results, for a total of 365,577 cases to date.
However, because testing availability is now limited throughout the province, the case count is understood to be an underestimate of the actual number of people with COVID-19 in BC.
A total of 375 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 between April 24 and 30, according to the BCCDC.
Test positivity rates remain high
While BC reports that 50 more people died between April 24 and 30, that number is being reported very differently than in the past.
Those deaths include all people who died within 30 days of testing positive for COVID-19, whether or not the virus was confirmed to be the underlying cause of death. Previously, each death was investigated to determine if COVID-19 was a cause.
Test positivity rates remain high, at 11.2% provincewide on April 30, according to the BC CDC panel.
More than 20 percent of COVID-19 tests in the Interior Health region were positive on that date, while Vancouver Coastal Health had the lowest rate of test positivity at 6.7 percent.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, a provincial health officer, has said that a test positivity rate of more than five percent is an indicator of a more worrying level of transmission.
BC removed mandatory masking requirements in most indoor public spaces On March 10and proof of vaccination requirements on april 8.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said at the time that BC has high enough vaccination rates that those requirements are no longer necessary to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
In the weeks since, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations rose steadily through March and the first half of April, before showing signs of slowing down this week.
Provincial numbers show that 32,863 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered from April 24 to 30.
Reference-www.cbc.ca