Thompson Okanagan managing to keep COVID-19 cases lower than most of the province

B.C.'s COVID-19 curve has turned up in recent weeks, but not all regions are seeing the pandemic play out in the same way.

In the past two weeks, 13 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the Okanagan.

According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, which produces a weekly surveillance report covering a variety of COVID-19 data, the rate of transmission in the Valley is now among the lowest in the province.

With 13 cases, the transmission rate in the Okanagan is .1 to five per 100,000 population, which puts it alongside the East Kootenays and Thompson Cariboo Shuswap.

That’s far below the rate in Vancouver, Surrey and or even northern corners of the province.

The Northeast corner of the province – essentially Fort St. John and Dawson Creek – recorded 39 cases or 15 per 100,000, largely due to people attending a religious gathering in Alberta in August.?

Other information in the weekly report is that the number of new cases reported this week was 833, which is an increase from the 789 from the previous week.

“The most likely source of infection remains contact with a local case or cluster, with a large proportion of recent cases still pending exposure information,” according to the BCCDC.

“The median age of cases continues to decrease since the beginning of the pandemic.”

The median age for a case of COVID-19 is 38 years old compared to 55 years at the beginning of the case.

Case counts in most age groups have increased this week, with the exception of the less-than-10 years old group, 10  to 19 years old and 80-plus years age groups.

The number of new hospital admissions has also increased in recent weeks, with the number of cases currently in hospital similar to the numbers observed in early May.

The number of cases currently in critical care is increasing but is still much lower than counts observed in phase 1, when the case load was higher.

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