Flu looks like it might have peaked. COVID-19 case counts in BC dropped slightly, but other jurisdictions (including the USA) have rising COVID-19 counts and the BC wastewater looks like it is trending rising, so I’m going to say that COVID-19 levels are rising slowly. I have less information on RSV, but the shape/size of… Continue reading 2026-01-16 BC
Category: BC
2026-01-09 BC
COVID-19 COVID-19 is going up slightly, but from a very low base. Influenza is still a much bigger deal right now. Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: As I suspected, the slight drop in various respiratory illness levels in the last provincial report was in fact an artifact of the holidays. Flu has not… Continue reading 2026-01-09 BC
2025-12-24 BC
Note: against normal practice, I updated the wastewater chart and added a news article about a closed emergency room after I published this post — because of holiday strangenesses and my illness. It’s not likely to be a frequent occurrence. I thought I was going to give a belated look at last week’s data, but… Continue reading 2025-12-24 BC
2025-12-12 BC
Flu levels have jumped a lot. Flu, RSV, and entero/rhinoviruses are all now more prevalent than COVID-19 in BC. COVID-19 Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: WHEEEE look at flu GO! In the most recent data (ending 6 Dec) as reported on 11 Dec 2025, among influenza-like illness (i.e respiratory diseases) cases that the… Continue reading 2025-12-12 BC
2025-12-05 BC
COVID-19 Wastewater Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet has pretty much always shown a higher COVID-19 concentration per litre than any of the other health authorities — by a large margin. This summer, for example, Fraser levels were four or five times higher than Vancouver and Richmond: I dug into the by-HA records. Fraser Health Authority might have… Continue reading 2025-12-05 BC
2025-11-28 BC
If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet, now would be a good time. It looks to me like flu cases are about to shoot up. There are now more flu cases than COVID-19 cases. COVID-19 is clearly declining. COVID-19 Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: Last week’s numbers were adjusted up quite a… Continue reading 2025-11-28 BC
2025-11-21 BC
Hospitals This article (2025-11-19) reports that the ICU at West Coast General Hospital in Alberni was going to close temporarily on 2025-11-20 until they can hire/transfer enough specialized staff. (Patients who need the ICU would be stabilized and then transferred to other hospitals.) The BC health minister said that this showed that there is a… Continue reading 2025-11-21 BC
2025-11-14 BC
Charts DAMMIT. The province is not going to give us the number of people with COVID-19 in hospital any more. 😠 From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: I would like to point out that for the past three years, the peaks of COVID-19 cases (as measured by the province) have all been in early October… Continue reading 2025-11-14 BC
2025-11-07 BC
COVID-19 appears to be holding pretty steady. Flu actually went down according to the province, but that is probably noise. Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: In the most recent data (ending 1 Nov) as reported on 6 Nov 2025, among influenza-like illness (i.e upper respiratory diseases) cases the province has test data for:… Continue reading 2025-11-07 BC
2025-10-31 BC
COVID-19 looks like it is either plateuing or going down slowly. Influenza is clearly thinking about making its move, but hasn’t yet. If you are trying to time your flu vaccination for maximum effect, it might be time to start thinking about doing do in the next few weeks. H5N1 Transmission 🐦⬛🤧 This article (2025-10-27)… Continue reading 2025-10-31 BC