COVID-19 levels look like they aren’t getting worse — but they also look like they aren’t getting any better.
I’ll spare you the graphs for other respiratory diseases, but overall they are going down slightly. COVID-19 is very steady, and influenza is declining slightly, RSV is declining, and the “other” bucket of respiratory diseases is rising a lot (but from a low base).
Legal
This article (2024-02-09) reports that a judge has overturned the conviction of a woman who deliberately and masklessly coughed on someone throwing her out of a grocery store for not wearing a mask. The ruling was fundamentally procedural, and normally they would do the trial over, but the woman has already served enough of her sentence that the judge basically said, “Enh, don’t bother.”
Statistics
As of 16 Feb, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 10 Feb there were: +391 reported cases, +96 hospital admissions, +15 ICU admissions, and +15 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
In the week ending 3 Feb, they now report that there were +441 reported cases, +119 hospital admissions, +22 ICU admissions, and +22 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
For comparison, in the previous update (2024-02-09) they reported that for the week ending on 3 Feb there were: +437 reported cases, +107 hospital admissions, +22 ICU admissions, and +11 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 170 people in hospital and 17 in critical care with COVID-19 on 15 February.
Charts
From the BC CDC Situation Report:
From Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet:
