COVID-19 cases wane but province prepped for any surge

The provincial government says British Columbians are benefitting from an early roll out of the COVID-19 and influenza vaccination campaign launched a month ago.

The latest numbers from the BC Centre for Disease Control show that COVID-19 cases are decreasing after a peak in early October, with fewer cases and hospitalizations weekly.

As of Nov. 9, there are 244 patients in hospital. Of those, eight are in critical care.

While there may yet be a winter surge in respiratory illnesses, BC Health Minister Adrian Dix said the uptake of vaccinations among the public had been good. As of Thursday, there had been 1,072,505 doses of influenza vaccines and 847,458 COVID-19 vaccines.

He said over 30,000 people were vaccinated on Thursday alone as more appointments were being added across over 1,100 pharmacies provincewide.

“The campaign continues to be strong across BC,” he told a media briefing Friday. “Everybody knows we started our vaccination campaign much earlier than other jurisdictions in the country; nine days earlier. We are benefitting from that.”

Dix said last year BC set a record for flu vaccines at over 1,775,000 and so far this year to be at over 1,072,000 in the first month, “shows we’re in good shape.”

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said outbreaks of COVID-19 and influenza were still happening despite the waning numbers. There have been some quickly spreading outbreaks in long term care homes, and she called on people to stay home if they have a fever. But in general, things are looking better than they did a month ago.

“Thankfully, with COVID now, because so many people are vaccinated, and our healthcare system is well protected through vaccination, we’re seeing mostly mild illnesses in these outbreaks,” she said. However, she said some influenza outbreaks had been more severe.

Meanwhile, the government has announced they are ensuring hospital capacity in the event of increased demand during the respiratory season. Dix said the base bed amount had been increased to 9,924 with a further 1,500 surge beds prepared if necessary.

Demands on health care are increasing year over year in BC based on the strong economy and an influx of people coming to the province along with an ageing population.

Last month Dix said there were more patients requiring hospitalization for all medical reasons than for the same period last year. He said there were 337 more patients in care per day compared to early October to early November last year.