COVID-19 hospitalizations rise in latest B.C. update, led by Fraser Health

The BC Center for Disease Control on Thursday reported 222 people hospitalized with COVID-19, a modest increase from last week’s 205.

The surge reverses a downward trend seen over the past two weeks, but reflects the latest data showing increased cases, virus levels in wastewater and new hospital admissions.

The number of people in hospital reported each week by the BCCDC includes both those hospitalized for severe cases of COVID-19 and those hospitalized for other reasons who happen to test positive.

Health officials estimate that between 40 and 50 percent of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are there because of the disease at some point, while the rest are coincidences.

Before January 2022, the BCCDC reported the total number of hospitalizations to exclude incidental cases. Since moving to the current model — known as the “hospital count” — the center has reported up to 985 people hospitalized with COVID-19 on a Thursday and just 188.

This week’s total of 222 is still below the lowest total ever recorded in 2022, which was 255.

Notably, the increase in the hospital count this week is entirely due to a surge in the Fraser Health region, which accounts for almost half of the provinces’ total, with 102 people hospitalized with the coronavirus.

As BC’s largest regional health authority by population, Fraser Health almost always has the largest share of COVID-19 hospitalizations, but its increase this week from 71 to 102 hospitalizations contrasts with an ongoing decline at neighboring Vancouver Coastal Health.

VCH, BC’s second-most populous health agency, had just 43 COVID-19 patients in its hospitals as of Thursday, the lowest total in any year.

OTHER DATA

In last week’s COVID-19 update, most available BCCDC data pointed to declining transmission of the coronavirus. The official number of cases fell compared to the previous week, as did the number of new hospital admissions.

Outliers were sewage monitoring data released by the BCCDC during the day on Thursdays. It showed significant jumps in concentrations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus across all monitored treatment regimens in the province.

This week, other measures have caught up with the sewage data.

The BCCDC on Thursday reported 374 new laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 for the period March 5-11, the last “epidemiological week.”

This total represents an increase from the total for the last epidemiological week, when 347 new cases were confirmed.

Case counts reported by the BCCDC do not – and cannot – capture every COVID-19 infection emerging in the province. The official case count excludes reinfections and only includes cases confirmed by laboratory-based testing, which is unavailable to the vast majority of BC residents under the province’s current testing strategy.

Nonetheless, the trend in official caseload tends to coincide with the trend in effluent surveillance and new hospital admissions, providing evidence of increasing transmission when increasing and decreasing transmission when decreasing.

This week, the BCCDC reported 102 people newly hospitalized with COVID-19 from March 5-11. That number is subject to change as data becomes more complete, and officials typically revise it upwards in the following week’s update.

Last week, the BCCDC initially reported 79 new hospitalizations for the period February 26-March 4. That total has since been revised to 108.

The higher reported starting point for new hospital admissions this week suggests higher rates of infection in the community in recent weeks.