Cases are rising but the number in hospital is falling. Two wastewater plants showed a dive so deep that it’s hard to believe, so…. your guess is as good as mine.
Respiratory Diseases
It definitely looks like BC respiratory illnesses have peaked, and at a lower level than last year, yay! COVID-19 levels are going up slightly, but everything else is going down.
Interestingly, most of the influenza this year is A/H1N1, while last year it was mostly A/H3N2. There’s almost no influenza B.
Hospitals
While the respiratory diseases aren’t as bad this year, this article reports that hospitals have had trouble with the cold. Mission Memorial Hospital had some water pipes break so was diverting some patients; Carelife Fleetwood in Surrey and Surrey Memorial Hospital’s emergency department had to bring in portable heaters.
Statistics
The province did not release a Situation Report last week, which is why there are more stats this week.
As of 18 Jan, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 13 Jan there were: +543 reported cases, +129 hospital admissions, +16 ICU admissions, and +20 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
In the week ending 6 Jan, they report that there were +511 reported cases, +164 hospital admissions, +31 ICU admissions, and +20 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
In the week ending 30 Dec, they now report that there were +423 reported cases, +141 hospital admissions, +19 ICU admissions, and +24 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
In the week ending 23 Dec, they now report that there were +363 reported cases, +154 hospital admissions, +17 ICU admissions, and +23 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
For comparison, in the previous update (2024-01-04) they reported that for the week ending 30 Dec, there were: +431 reported cases, +101 hospital admissions, +16 ICU admissions, and +11 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
In the previous update, they reported that in the week ending on 23 Dec, they now report that there were +383 reported cases, +124 hospital admissions, +14 ICU admissions, and +20 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
*All-cause deaths in people who had a positive COVID-19 test in the prior 30 days, that is.
There were 172 people in hospital and 24 in critical care with COVID-19 on 18 January.
Charts
From the BC CDC Situation Report:
Note: the above chart doesn’t really jibe with the numbers I have, with cases going up monotonically over the past four weeks: 363, 423, 511, 543. Maybe the difference is that I only have weekly numbers, not daily? But the seven-day average ought to make things look broadly similar?
From Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet:
