2022-01-19 BC

Testing

The BC CDC recently updated their testing web page to say who was eligible. Basically, if you are young, vaccinated, and not CEV, then you don’t get a PCR test (unless your job is in a special category like HCW or prison guard)

There are some people who are upset, but I am having a hard time getting upset. Almost no young/vaccinated/non-CEV people (like me) will require treatment for acute COVID-19, and the primary reason to do testing is to guide treatment. (This is why I have never been tested for the flu but I have been tested for strep throat many times: there was no treatment at the time which they would have given me for flu, but they did give me antibiotics (regularly!) for strep.)

There are secondary reasons to get tested:

  1. to allow travel (as airlines or countries might require it);
  2. to verify that you are not ill and hence will not be infecting others (e.g. at grandma’s birthday party);
  3. to provide evidence that you did in fact have COVID-19, if you should develop Long COVID at a later date.

Number 3 certainly would be a concern in the USA, where f evil insurance companies will do anything they can to avoid paying for treatment. Howver:

  • I hope that BC will be different. (If they hassle Long COVID patients because of that, that is a fight I will take on!)
  • There are antibody tests which can (usually) prove that you had an COVID-19 infection.
  • I have read a number of research which have identified blood signatures which are different for people who have had COVID-19 and/or Long COVID.

Numbers 1 and 2 seem reasonable for the province to not pay for. Think about it this way: do you want to pay for Joe Random to get tested every day just because he feels like it? Everybody every day? No? Then that means there is some level which you are willing to restrict testing, after that it’s just an argument about where the level should be. I’m okay with not paying for discretionary purposes.

Now, this could all change if effective treatments become widely available even for young/vaccinated/non-CEV people. At that point, given the spectre of Long COVID, then I think testing should get opened back up to anybody who is symptomatic. We aren’t there yet.

(If I got symptoms and Paxlovid was available, would I go get a COVID-19 test? Probbbabbbllly, but I would have to think about it. Paxlovid is a strong drug and should not be taken lightly.)

Mitigation Measures

This press release reports that the province is doubling grants for businesses which lost money because of the recent closures.


This article reports that the province changed its rules on isolation. They had recently changed the isolation period for COVID-positive to five days (down from ten) for vaccinated people. Today they changed so unvaccinated people also could leave isolation at five days. This article says that the province walked that back, and unvaxxed still need to isolate for ten days.

Statistics

 +2,387 cases, +13 deaths, +2,816 first doses, +1,726 second doses, +64,627 other doses. 

Currently 895 in hospital / 115 in ICU.

Positivity rate of 19.6%.

first dosessecond dosesthird doses
of adults92.8%90.2%38.0%
of over-12s92.4%89.7%35.5%
of over-5s89.3%83.4%*
of all BCers86.9%81.2%32.3%

Charts

From this Twitter thread:


From this Twitter thread:


From the BC CDC Situation Report from 2 Jan to 8 Jan (so a week old):