COVID hospitalizations in B.C. continue to climb, hitting 891

As predicted by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, the hospitalization rate for people infected with COVID-19 continues to climb.

There are now 891 people in hospital with a positive COVID test, up from 854 yesterday. The number of people in intensive care climbed to 119 today from 112 yesterday.

These numbers include everyone with a positive test. It’s estimated that 45% of them have mild or no symptoms.

There were 2,150 B.C. residents who tested positive to PCR COVID tests in the last 24 hours, 563 of whom live in the Interior Health region, according to a Ministry of Health news release issued today, Jan. 20.

Health officials estimate that the actual number of new cases each day is three to four times these amounts since some people are advised not to get a test if they have mild symptoms and others take rapid tests and don’t report the results to health officials.

There are 576 new cases in the Fraser Health region, 454 in Vancouver Coastal, 354 on Vancouver Island and 203 in Northern Health.

There have been 15 new deaths in the last 24 hours, including two in the Interior Health region, bringing the provincial total since the start of the pandemic to 2,520.

There are 34,835 active cases in B.C.

The vaccination rate for people over the age of 12 is 92.5% with at least one dose, 89.8% with at least two doses and 36.7% with three doses.

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