Hospitalizations increase to 819 in B.C. to due to COVID-19

Even though the province has changed the way it reports COVID hospitalization data, there has been a big jump to 819 in hospital today, Jan. 17, from the 646 reported Friday under the new recording system.

Every person in hospital for whatever reason who tests positive for COVID is counted as being hospitalized with COVID, even though 45% may just have an incidental COVID diagnosis.

READ MORE: 'Step closer' to pandemic's end as B.C. hits peak of Omicron's spread in community: Dr. Henry

The other metric that is of significance is how many are so sick with COVID that they’re in intensive care. Today that number stands at 99, up only slightly from 95 on Friday.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said, last week, that the peak of people with positive COVID PCR test results has likely passed but hospitalizations will probably go up for another week or so.

She seems to be right on both counts.

From Friday to Saturday, there were 2,383 new positive tests in B.C, 1,733 from Saturday to Sunday and 1,509 in the last 24 hours, according to a Ministry of Health news release issued today.

There were 1,345 new cases recorded in the Interior Health region over the weekend, an average of 448 per day, up slightly from last week.

That’s down from the daily case counts last week and far below the record high of 4,383 on Dec. 30.

Since many people are not getting COVID tests or are taking rapid tests and not reporting their positive results, Dr. Henry has estimated that the true number of new COVID cases is three to four times those recorded by the PCR tests.

There were 22 more deaths over the weekend, including four in the Interior Health region, bringing the pandemic total in B.C. to 2,490.

There are now. 92.4% of eligible people over the age of 12 who have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, a slight increase from Friday. The 89.6% who are fully vaccinated is the same rate as Friday while those with a third dose has increased by about 3% to 33.3%

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