Well, after some nice drops in COVID-19 levels recently, it looks like we’ve gone back up — which is probably noise. But it looks stagnant at best. 🙁
Mitigation Measures
This BC Ministry of Health press release says that masks are no longer required in health care settings. A lot of places weren’t masking or were kind of casual about it, so I’m not sure how much of a change this will be in practical terms. (For example, I saw at one clinic that neither the receptionists nor the doctors were masking; at another, the doctors were masking but the reception/clerical staff was not.)
Vaccines
The same BC Ministry of Health press release says that anybody who wants a spring XBB 1.5 COVID-19 booster can get one. They will only be issuing invitations to people 65 and over (55 for indigenous people), clinically vulnerable, and residents of long-term or assisted-living care homes, but anybody can call 833/838-2323 to book or walk in to pharmacies that have doses.
Do you need a dose? “Need” is such a strange term. If you are young and healthy, a bout of COVID-19 is unlikely to kill you outright during the acute phase.
HOWEVER, as frequent readers of this blog will know, a lot of people get Long COVID. (How many get the crushing fatigue form permanently? It’s really hard to know because different studies use different criteria and a lot of studies don’t use control groups, but I personally use the figure of 1%. And it’s cumulative: having escaped Long COVID the first time you got COVID-19 does not guarantee you escaping it the next time.)
Furthermore, SARS-CoV-2 can infect just about any cell in the body (as opposed to colds, which mostly stay in the respiratory system). The risk of a new immune / cardiovascular / neurological / gastrointestinal / pulmonary system diagnosis ranges from about 50% to 150% higher after a COVID-19 infection.
Not only that, there are subclinical things that people don’t notice. COVID-19 seems to drop everybody’s IQ by a few points*. Will you notice or miss a few IQ points? Probably not — but do it repeatedly and you will.
*I know full well that IQ measures are not good indicators of intelligence, blah blah, and none of the studies actually used IQ tests — I’m simplifying into terms that are more recognizable, give me a break.
Add to that that neither infections or vaccinations protect you for all that long (see this paper, for example), and you can probably see why I always get another vax as soon as I can.
Statistics
As of 11 April, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 6 April there were: +337 reported cases, +78 hospital admissions, +13 ICU admissions, and +15 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
In the week ending 30 March, they now report that there were +297 reported cases, +91 hospital admissions, +17 ICU admissions, and +24 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.
For comparison, in the previous update (2024-04-04) they reported that in the week ending on 30 March there were: +290 reported cases, +76 hospital admissions, +14 ICU admissions, and +16 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 141 people in hospital and 9 in critical care with COVID-19 on 11 April.
Charts
From the BC CDC Situation Report:
From Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet:
