Note: The province will not give another update until 3 Jan 2025. There are about 20% more respiratory illnesses than were reported week. However, they also increased last week’s figures, so this week is about the same as what they now say we had last week. 🙁 The COVID-19 numbers don’t get revised as much… Continue reading 2024-12-20 BC
Category: BC
2024-12-13 BC
COVID-19 keeps going down! All the numbers (yes, including wastewater) are almost as low as they were 18 months ago. (COVID-19 is NOT “seasonal”!) RSV is up, and is still the most common respiratory infection. Flu is rising a bit more quickly than it had been, but it still is at a pretty low level.… Continue reading 2024-12-13 BC
2024-12-07 BC
The COVID levels — on all measures — keep going down for no obvious reason. I don’t care why, I think it’s awesome! I haven’t seen levels this low since summer 2023. Flu is creeping up, but RSV is this report period’s leader. Charts From the BC CDC Situation Report: Comparison vs. Other Influenza-Like-Illnesses, from… Continue reading 2024-12-07 BC
2024-11-29 BC
I now have a recommendation on when to get a flu shot: somewhere around Dec. 10. It takes about two weeks to get max protection, and getting a shot around Dec. 10 puts you at max protection around Christmas Eve. I think the peak will be in late January, so you will also have good… Continue reading 2024-11-29 BC
2024-11-22 BC
Influenza levels are still low, both in BC and in the US northwest. I still don’t think it’s the optimum time yet to get a flu shot. H5N1 Transmission For info on the BC human H5N1 case, see the General post. This article (2024-11-17) says that there are now 37 infected poultry flocks in BC.… Continue reading 2024-11-22 BC
2024-11-16 BC
All indicators say that the levels of COVID-19 are coming down noticeably at the moment. Regarding influenza vaccines, flu rates have ticked up slightly but are still really low. It feels to me like we are about two weeks behind last year’s flu season, so I think that means flu will probably peak in late… Continue reading 2024-11-16 BC
2024-11-08 BC
I still think it’s not the right time yet to get a flu shot. There’s not a lot of flu going around, and historically it peaks in late December. It *did* peak early (at the end of November) two years ago — but that was our first season post-mitigation measures and we’d already seen a… Continue reading 2024-11-08 BC
2024-11-03 BC
Other indicators are difficult to interpret, but wastewater COVID-19 levels are sharply, unmistakably down this week. Charts From the BC CDC Situation Report: From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: In the week ending Oct. 26, among confirmed cases, there were Reminder: the graphs below don’t tell how many cases there were, but how many cases… Continue reading 2024-11-03 BC
2024-10-26 BC
The hospitalizations per week and ICU admits per week charts look like they are going down, but I don’t believe them: the in-hospital chart looks like it is going up, and the hospitalizations per week and ICU admits per week pretty much always get adjusted upwards later. Meanwhile, the number of cases and the positivity… Continue reading 2024-10-26 BC
2024-10-18 BC
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 has unmistakenly gone up since August, and there is a small but very real rise in the number of COVID-19 cases that they have seen. Positivity, however, hasn’t really moved all that much (and wastewater is hard to interpret), so I don’t know what to tell you… Continue reading 2024-10-18 BC