Another 19 people died in B.C. overnight while infected with COVID-19.
That is the highest number for a single day since Jan. 26, when there were 21 such deaths – the highest total for a day in more than a year.
The new deaths push the province's pandemic death toll to 2,675.
The government provided few details about the deaths. Five were in the Fraser Health region, while six were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, two were in the Northern Health region, and six were in the Island Health region.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry recently estimated that about 40% of new COVID-19 deaths in B.C. were in seniors' care homes or retirement communities.
Some may have been in hospitals' intensive care units (ICUs), as the number of COVID-19 patients there fell by six overnight, to 139. In total, 946 people are known to have COVID-19 while now in a B.C. hospital. This is the fourth consecutive day in which COVID-19 hospitalizations in B.C. have fallen.
Counts for newly discovered cases have lost value as an indicator of how widespread COVID-19 is in B.C. because vaccinated people with mild symptoms have been told to not get tested, and to simply self-isolate.
Regardless, health officials detected 1,799 new infections in the past day, lowering the number of known active cases by 75, to 25,479 – the lowest total so far this year. The positive-test rate has been between 17 per cent and 18 per cent in each of the past three days. The highest positive-test rate so far this year was above 25 per cent, on January 5.
The number of those who are known to have recovered from the disease passed the 300,000 threshold, and is now 301,573 of the 330,942 known infections. In addition to those known to now be infected, those who have recovered and those who have died, there are 1,215 people whose status the province is unaware – potentially because they left the province without alerting officials.
Henry has recently been stressing that older people, particularly those older than 80 years, are by far more vulnerable for serious illnesses.
That is why it is a concern that there are now 58 active outbreaks at health-care facilities or seniors' homes.
Three outbreaks in those facilities were detected in the past day, at:
• Creekside Landing in Vernon;
• Chemainus Health Care Centre in Chemainus; and
• Selkirk Seniors Village in Victoria.
The outbreak at Joseph Creek Care Village in Cranbrook has been declared over.
Unvaccinated people remain more likely to be infected, and to suffer serious disease from COVID-19 than those who have had vaccine jabs. The proportion of cases and hospitalizations among the unvaccinated, however, is much less in the current Omicron wave of the disease than it was during the previous Delta wave.
Between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 24.9 per cent of cases, according to new government data. Between Jan. 20 and Feb. 2, those individuals accounted for 31.2 per cent of hospitalizations.
Provincial data show 4,486,817 B.C. residents have had at least one dose of vaccine, while 4,199,246 are considered fully vaccinated with two doses.
There were 25,355 people given booster, or third, doses of vaccine in the past day, for a total of 2,229,462. The daily number of new third doses is down significantly from the record 59,329 third doses provided on Jan. 13.
The B.C. government last year estimated that the province's total population is 5,147,712. Hence, Glacier Media's calculation is that nearly 87.2 per cent of B.C.'s total population has had at least one dose of vaccine, and nearly 81.6 per cent of the province's total population has had two doses. Nearly 43.3 per cent have had their booster doses. •
