COVID-19 infection rates dispersed unevenly across B.C.

Over the past month, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive in all of the province’s five health regions.

As expected, the Fraser Health region has been hit hardest on a number of measurements including total cases so far (11,606 out of 18,985 to Nov. 7) according to a “Situation Report” issued by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control on Nov. 13.

Vancouver Coastal had 5,588 cases, Interior Health 906, Northern Health 481 and Vancouver Island had 315.

The number of tests conducted each week in B.C. ranged from 60,000 to 70,000 during the last few weeks with Fraser Health having the highest infection rate.

In the first week of October, two per cent of its tests came back positive but that rate jumped to 7.8 per cent during the first week of November.

Vancouver Coastal’s rate went from 1.3 per cent to 3.9 per cent, Interior Health from .4 per cent to 2.9 per cent, Northern Health from one per cent to 3.6 per cent and Vancouver Island from .2 per cent to .7 per cent.

Along with the percentage of positive tests being higher in Fraser Health, so was the infection rate per 100,000 population.

There were 2,470 new cases in B.C. in the first week of November with the infection rate in the Fraser Health region translating into 93 cases per 100,000 population, triple the rate of infection from a month earlier.

The rate in Vancouver Coastal went from 23 to 41 per 100,000.

The case rate in the Interior Health region went from three per 100,000 in early October to 13 per 100,000 in the first week of November.

The Northern Health region went from seven to 13 per 100,000 and Vancouver Island went from one to four.

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