This week’s postings will be short because I have Things To Do for the next few days. This means that the wastewater information will be delayed. I might revise this blog on Friday or Saturday to add in the wastewater chart, but otherwise you’ll need to wait a week. Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization… Continue reading 2026-02-05 BC
Category: BC
2026-01-30 BC
COVID-19 is steady and pretty low, influenza is falling fast, and RSV is climbing. Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: Influenza case counts continue to go down. COVID-19 continues to be about the same. RSV continues to go up a little bit. In the most recent data (ending 24 Jan 2026) as reported on… Continue reading 2026-01-30 BC
2026-01-23 BC
COVID-19 Charts From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: Influenza levels are definitely, clearly down. At this point, it looks like this season won’t end up as bad as many people (including me) thought it would be. Last week there was a slight drop in RSV cases, but I said that I thought it was just… Continue reading 2026-01-23 BC
2026-01-16 BC
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
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