COVID-19 infection rate in B.C. more than triple than at height of first wave

Back in the spring during the first wave, when fears abounded COVID-19 would rip through B.C. and overwhelm hospitals, the disease was being contracted by nine residents per 100,000 population.

By late October, that rate hit more than 30 per 100,000. And that was before the huge spike in new cases last week at more than 500 per day.

Yet compared to many other provinces, B.C. is doing well.

That data comes from reports on the B.C. Centre for Disease Control website that is updated weekly, but some of the data has a week's time lag. That means, data posted on Nov. 6, only tracked the COVID-19 cases through to the end of October.

One graph shows the number of cases actually started falling in the Fraser Health region the last week of October but that drop was offset by increases in the Vancouver Coastal health region.

While the number of cases have gone up, the data shows the rate of hospitalization has dropped significantly.

It peaked at 107 people per week being hospitalized in mid-April, and while it’s on the way back up, there were only 67 people being hospitalized per week at the end of October.

Of the 266 deaths caused by COVID-19, two-thirds happened before the June re-opening of services following the lockdown. Two-thirds of the deaths were associated with outbreaks in care facilities and 85 per cent were people who were more than 70 years old.

A new interactive feature on the website shows how B.C. is doing compared to the rest of Canada or other countries.

This graph shows the number of cases and deaths per 100,000 people up to Nov. 5.

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