Monday May 25, 2020 ~ BC, NATIONAL & GLOBAL
by Mary Brooke, B.Sc. ~ West Shore Voice News
While we are getting on with our lives amidst the risk of COVID-19, we will want to keep track of the numbers of test-positive cases and also the deaths.
Though it’s probably best not to become numb to the numbers even as Phase 2 sees British Columbians experimenting with businesses opening, personal ‘bubbles’ expanding, and recreation in parks booming.
Broad view of COVID-19 (May 25):
Here is the broad view of COVID-19 statistics at May 25 (‘new’ = in the last 24 hours). All stats from World Health Organization except the BC stats which are from BC Centre for Disease Control.
- Global: 5,304,772 cases (100,264 new), deaths 342,029 (4,342 new)
- USA: 1,592,599 cases (24,151 new), deaths 95,863 (1,852 new)
- Canada: 84,081 cases (1,189 new), deaths 6,380 (103 new)
- British Columbia: 2,530 cases (12 new), deaths 161 (4 new)
Comparisons:
Where there were widespread outbreaks in Europe, we note some measure of control of the death rate. United Kingdom has with 259,563 cases (2,405 new), and deaths 36,793 (118). European countries with large outbreaks earlier on — notably Spain and Italy, seem to have things more under control: Spain now has 235,772 cases (482 new) and 28,752 deaths (74 new), and Italy has 229,858 cases (531 new), and 32,785 deaths (50 new).
The cluster around 30,000:
As a matter of comparison, four countries in Europe that have cases in and around the 30,000 range, have similar death rates — except Sweden which has chosen to leave itself more open to achieving natural herd immunity and shows thereby a higher death rate:
- Sweden: 33,653 cases (271 new), 3,998 deaths (6 new)
- Switzerland: 30,653 (11 new), 1,640 deaths (0 new)
- Portugal: 30,623 cases (152 new), 1,316 deaths (14 new)
- Ireland: 24,639 (57 new), 1,608 deaths (4 new)
BC’s progress during Phase 2:
Today BC’s Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry described how BC is starting in our second week of “pandemic Restart”, refering to the Restart BC program (Phase 2 runs May 19 to 31, before a longer summer phase of June to September).
She says she and her team are “monitoring our pandemic in BC very closely”.
Guiding a lot of her decisions on observation and ‘learning’ today she said again that BC public health is learning from the “experiences across Canada and other parts of the world” as we “chart our course forward”.
“We have made significant progress. Our numbers continue to track low, but there are still ongoing challenges with outbreaks,” Dr Henry said, noting that “introductions that have led to clusters and outbreaks”.
“Where people opening up we may see resurgence and none of us want that, as we ease more restrictions later this summer. This is the first week of a two-week incubation period. Next week that will help us understand where we’ve been, said Dr Henry who has achieved national recognition for how BC has managed to contain COVID-19 in BC to ultimately a light load on the health care system and general population (other than the disaster of most deaths occuring among seniors in long term care and acute care homes).
COVID-19 in BC by the numbers:
Dr Henry reported on the last two 24-hour reporting periods: Saturday May 23 to Sunday May 24 in which there were five new cases, and Sunday May 24 to midday today May 25 with seven new cases. Those additional 12 new cases bring the total to 2,530 in BC.
Active case count is 267 with 2,102 people who tested positive having now recovered. Of the total COVID-19 cases, 37 individuals are hospitalized (with seven of those in intensive care). The remaining people with COVID-19 are recovering at home in self-isolation.
In children (as of 4:30 pm May 25), there have been 76 test-positive cases (50 in the 10 to 19 age range, and 26 in children under the age of 10). Dr Henry says the cardiovascular response seen in some children after COVID-19 infection (called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children) is on the advisory list for physicians to watch out for in BC. However, she says that no young people under age of 19 have been in ICU due to COVID-19, and no children have died in BC from COVID-19.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 894 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 1,253 in the Fraser Health region, 127 in the Island Health region, 194 in the Interior Health region and 62 in the Northern Health region.
“We are saddened to report four new COVID-19 related deaths in the Fraser Health region, for a total of 161 deaths in British Columbia,” said Dr Henry, with Health Minister Adrian Dix also adding his condolences.