Mitigation Measures
This article reports that the province has lifted several mitigation measures:
- Masks no longer required in most health care settings for asymptomatic people;
- visitors to long-term care homes no longer need to show proof of vaccination or a rapid test.
Dr. Henry did say that some mitigation measures might return in the fall. Yeah, good luck with putting that cat back in that bag.
Somehow I missed it, but this article from 21 March 2023 says that the Vancouver City Council made changes to construction bylaws which said that the HVAC systems in new buildings must use at least MERV13-class filters. Yay! MERV13 isn’t quite as good as HEPA, but it’s still quite good. (Council also put in A/C requirements and stricter energy efficiency requirements. That has almost nothing to do with COVID-19, but I still think it’s cool.)
Side Effects
This article says that the BC SPCA had taken in about 350 puppies this year, compared to about 200 at this point last year. Apparently, people thought they’d make some money taking advantage of the pandemic boosting desire for puppies, but were not prepared when the boom busted. So if you want a puppy, now is the time!
Statistics
As of today, the BC CDC weekly report said that in the week ending on 1 April there were: +459 reported cases, +146 hospital admissions, +24 ICU admissions, +21 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
As of today, the weekly report said that the previous week (data through March 25) there were: +456 reported cases, +165 hospital admissions, +30 ICU admissions, +26 all-cause deaths*.
Last week, the BC CDC weekly report said that in the week ending on 23 March there were: +456 reported cases, +135 hospital admissions, +29 ICU admissions, +18 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
Last week, the weekly report said that the previous week (data through March 18) there were: +405 reported cases, +143 hospital admissions, +23 ICU admissions, +30 all-cause deaths*.
*All-cause deaths in people who had a positive COVID-19 test in the prior 30 days, that is.
The BC CDC weekly report says that there are 282 in hospital / 21 in ICU as of 6 April 2023.
Charts
From the BC CDC Situation Report page as of 6 April (with data through 25 March):
From the BC CDC VoC report as of 6 April (with data through 25 March):
The BC CDC Vaccination Coverage report hasn’t been updated yet this week, and is not very interesting any more anyway, so I’m going to stop reporting it.
Wastewater
Something is really fishy here. The wastewater graph this week doesn’t look anything like last week’s. From the BC CDC wastewater page this week (covering data through 18 March extracted 20 March):
From last week’s page, covering data through 18 March extracted 20 March:
Or, a graph of Lulu Island detail graph which I grabbed at about 3pm Thursday (before the page’s data was updated):
Compared to a Lulu Island detail graph which I grabbed at about 4pm (after the page’s data was updated):
There is still a note that the BC CDC wastewater page changed its sampling method at the end of February, and says that we should ”use caution” comparing post-Feb to pre-March, so maaaaaaaybe they are scaling the post-Feb 28 data to make it equivalent to the pre-Feb 28 data, but even if they scaled linearly down it doesn’t look right. There are trends in the old graph which go up and here they are going down.
I call shenanigans.
