The number of people admitted to the intensive care unit infected with COVID-19 has increased in the last week | Rob Kruit, BIV
The number of serious COVID-19 infections sending British Columbians to hospital has changed little over the past week, according to data released Thursday by the British Columbia Center for Disease Control.
Hospitalizations fell to 401 people as of July 21, compared to a week earlier, when 406 people in the province were hospitalized.
But the number of those in intensive care rose from 30 to 35 weeks in the same one-week period.
Twenty-nine people have been reported to have died while infected with COVID-19 – up from 21 reported to have died a week earlier.
The death total includes anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 within 30 days and then died. This calculation may include people who tested positive and then died in car crashes.
Government figures show a total of 3,908 British Columbians have died while infected with COVID-19 — up 53 from a week earlier, although the province reported 29 deaths.
The British Columbia government’s process must include all deaths that involve people infected with COVID-19 in the weekly death toll as well as the total number of deaths. Then, at a future date, it is planned to remove from the total number of deaths those in which the provincial Vital Statistics Agency has determined that the death was not due to COVID-19.
Instead, for months the number of new deaths has been lower than the number of deaths added to the total number of COVID-19 deaths.
The Ministry of Health did not provide an explanation for this discrepancy when asked by BIV.
The ministry previously said the weekly death toll “may be incomplete,” but updated figures have not been released by the BC Center for Disease Control or the province.
Meanwhile, the latest government figures reveal 921 cases of COVID-19 detected in the last one-week period. That’s down from the 1,044 cases reported a week earlier.
However, data on new infections has long been dismissed, and even provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry earlier this year called the information “inaccurate.” That’s because in December she began telling people who are vaccinated and have mild symptoms not to get tested and to self-isolate. At the time, she said it was to increase testing capacity for those with more severe symptoms and those who are more vulnerable.
Testing is now encouraged only in cases where knowing the test result might change treatment recommendations.
— With files from Glen Korstrom
torton@biv.com
@reporton
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