Although it temporarily increased last month, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in B. C. It has increased. It fell this month.
As of Thursday, according to the B. C. Ministry of Health, another 263 people were hospitalized with the disease. That’s down from a nearly 14-month high of 422 at the start of the month and a steady drop of 38 cents over the past three weeks.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 reported through B. C. Ministry of Salud. Se shows the Center for Disease Control in 2023. (TVC)
Reported totals include those who are hospitalized due to COVID and those who are hospitalized for other reasons and test positive by chance.
CTV News tracks the number of people recently hospitalized, as this is the only metric reported through the BCCDC in real-time. Other data is reported through the “epidemiological week,” and the most recent figures reported in Thursday’s update come from the Sunday era to last Saturday.
Combined with other data and relative to its own trend line, the number of people recently hospitalized provides a snapshot of the relative level of coronavirus transmission in the province.
Since the peak in early October, there has been a clear downward trend in transmission.
While publicly funded labs are incredibly limited in British Columbia, the number of infections and test positivity rates have declined in the latest updates from the BCCDC.
According to the most recent data, there were 571 new laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections between October 15 and 21, down from 739 in the previous epidemiological week.
Similarly, the steady percentage of tests fell to 16. 4 percent in the week ending Oct. 21, down from 19. 4 percent last week and 23. 4 percent in the last week of September.
Wastewater surveillance data, which can provide insight into transmission rates among the vast majority of the population that is eligible for laboratory testing, continues to show expanding concentrations of the virus that causes COVID in the Lower Continent. However, the rate of increase has slowed in recent weeks, with the five processing plants on the Lower Mainland growing at 8 percent or less.
Elsewhere in British Columbia, the scenario is similar: the maximum number of processing plants is trending upwards, but the pace of growth is slowing.