Reminder: the province has gone to once-per-month COVID reporting. Testing This paper examined multiple commercial RATs. For the ones available in BC (at least, which were available in BC), the Panbio (dark blue box, but NOT the Artron) was not very sensitive; BTNX Cassette was one of the best but BTNX was one of the… Continue reading 2024-05-10 BC
Category: BC
2024-05-04 BC
Reminder: the province is dropping to monthly reports, so I won’t do a weekly BC report unless there’s some major BC-specific news in either COVID-19 or H5N1. Maybe wastewater is going up, or maybe that’s just noise. Hospitalizations continue to go down, dropping below 100 for the first time since last summer but not as… Continue reading 2024-05-04 BC
2024-04-26 BC
The good news: there were only 105 people in hospital on 13 April, which isn’t as low as the summer 2023 low or the low between Alpha and Delta, but it is lower that the low point between Delta and Omicron. Other indicators look flat or down slightly. The bad news: this article reports that… Continue reading 2024-04-26 BC
2024-04-19 BC
Levels are falling down pretty quickly! Yay for weather nice enough to open windows! Vaccines I have a friend who lives in BC but outside the core metro areas — not rural, but not The Big City. Because of some unusual medical conditions, Friend has really bad reactions to the mRNA vaccines. Friend thus tried… Continue reading 2024-04-19 BC
2024-04-12 BC
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… Continue reading 2024-04-12 BC
2024-04-05 BC
While hospitalizations are stagnant, reported cases and wastewater are both clearly going down, yay! Statistics As of 4 April, the BC CDC situation report says 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*. In the week ending 23 March, they now… Continue reading 2024-04-05 BC
2024-03-29 BC
While it definitely looks like levels are going down, BC CDC had a warning this week: “Note: Recent data for severe outcomes (hospitalizations, critical care admissions, and deaths) may not be complete due to the timing of data systems and processes. Data are updated and may become more complete over time.” So maybe it’s not… Continue reading 2024-03-29 BC
2024-03-22 BC
If I eyeball the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 (which is the only figure I really believe), I can convince myself that there is a very slow downwards trend. Wastewater also appears to be going down, yay! Statistics As of 21 March, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 16… Continue reading 2024-03-22 BC
2023-03-15 BC
The COVID-19 hospitalization level is still stagnant, though the (very noisy) wastewater counts look like they might be trending down. Statistics As of 14 March, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 9 Mar there were: +462 reported cases, +115 hospital admissions, +14 ICU admissions, and +16 thirty-day all-cause deaths*. In the… Continue reading 2023-03-15 BC
2024-03-08 BC
COVID-19 levels are pretty stagnant. It is impressive and disheartening to me how little the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 has budged since January (November if you throw out two outliers). Statistics As of 7 March, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 2 Mar there were: +433 reported cases,… Continue reading 2024-03-08 BC