Monday January 3, 2022 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc. | Island Social Trends
The 2022 New Year’s long weekend brought more COVID cases. The Omicron variant is spreading rapidly at a community level.
The variant of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is proving to be highly transmissible. Public health orders currently in place to January 18, 2022 include wearing a mask (N95 or medical mask where possible), size limits on social gatherings, and no crowd events such as sports.
Schools are open only for child-care type support to the children of essential workers (including health-care workers and teachers) for the week of January 3 to 7. In BC all other K-12 students are presently to return to in-class instruction starting Monday January 10. (By comparison, Ontario is shifting all students to remote learning until January 17.)
Preliminary COVID case counts:
Today on Monday January 3, some preliminary COVID stats for the three-day period of January 1 to 3 was reported by BC Health.
New cases by day:
Over the three-day period, B.C. is reporting 9,332 new cases of COVID-19, for a total of 264,181 cases in the province:
- Dec. 31, 2021 – Jan. 1, 2022: 4,033 new cases
- Jan. 1-2, 2022: 3,069 new cases
- Jan. 2-3, 2022: 2,230 new cases
New cases by health authority:
The new case distribution includes:
- 4,859 new cases in Fraser Health
- 1,797 new cases in Vancouver Coastal Health
- 1,185 new cases in Interior Health
- 374 new cases in Northern Health
- 1,117 new cases in Island Health (that’s about 12% of the 3-day total)
Vancouver Island COVID year-end overview:
At the end of the second year of the pandemic (22 month), at December 31, 2021, Island Health had tallied 17,834 cases (17,711 lab diagnosed and 123 epi-linked). Active cases were 2,336 at year-end. Daily case counts had spiked during December 2021, due to the highly transmissible Omicron.
At year-end there were 53 people in hospital with COVID, 12 of those in critical care. Hospitalizations pandemic-to-date (at 2021 year-end) came to 787 in Island Health.
At year end 2021, pandemic to date, there had been 143 deaths in people who tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. Of those, 21 (or 14.7%) occurred in just December 2021 alone.
At December 31, 2021 a total of 1,582,569 COVID vaccine shots had been administered (of which 680,364 were second doses). Most of the shots have been the mRNA type: 961,939 adult Pfizer (30 mcg) and 561,680 Moderna (30 mcg) as well as 23,338 shots pediatric Pfizer shots (10 mcg). In Island Health, 35,612 AstraZeneca doses have been administered; of those, 11,681 were second doses.
Next COVID updates:
The Ministry of Health will return to regular reporting of COVID-19 cases, vaccinations, hospitalizations and deaths, and cases and hospitalizations by vaccination status, on Tuesday, January 4.
The next live update by Health Minister Adrian Dix and Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry will be tomorrow, Tuesday January 4, at 1:30 pm on the usual government livestreams (Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube).
Check out the Island Social Trends COVID archive to see our ongoing COVID news coverage (from January 2020 forward).
===== ABOUT COVID (BC Government Links):
For information on booster doses, visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/covid-19/vaccine/booster
For the Dec. 21, 2021, announcement on additional COVID-19 measures, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0234-002431
For the Dec. 21, 2021, PowerPoint presentation on COVID-19 updated measures, boosters and rapid antigen testing in B.C., visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/CovidMeasures.pdf
For the Dec. 17, 2021, announcement on new COVID-19 measures, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0230-002414
For the Dec. 14, 2021, modelling presentation, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/12.14.21_PHO_modelling.pdf
For the Nov. 23, 2021, announcement on COVID-19 pediatric vaccine for children aged 5-11, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0209-002245
To learn more about COVID-19 vaccines for children: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/covid-19/vaccine/children
For the Oct. 26, 2021, announcement on COVID-19 booster shots for all British Columbians, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/25604
For information on a third dose for people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised, visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/covid-19/vaccine/register#immunocompromised
As they become available, information on school outbreaks will be posted online: www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/public-exposures
For surgical renewal commitment progress reports, visit:
* https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/surgical-renewal-progress-report-April-2021.pdf
* https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/surgical-renewal-progress-report-Apr-May-2021.pdf
* https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/surgical-renewal-progress-report-May-June-2021.pdf
* https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/surgical-renewal-progress-report-June-July-2021.pdf
To learn about how B.C. counts its daily COVID-19 cases in hospitals, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0058-001844
To learn about the BC Vaccine Card and how to access yours, visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/vaccinecard.html
For the Aug. 12, 2021, announcement on mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for long-term care
workers, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/25143
For information on breakthrough cases, see the BCCDC weekly data summary: http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/data#summary
Detailed data is posted daily on the BCCDC dashboard: http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/data or: www.bccdc.ca
To register to be immunized or to learn about getting your second dose, visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/covid-19/vaccine/register or https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/covid-19/vaccine/dose-2
For the provincial health officer’s orders and guidance, visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/about-bc-s-health-care-system/office-of-the-provincial-health-officer/current-health-topics/covid-19-novel-coronavirus
For guidance on restrictions, visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-preparedness-response-recovery/covid-19-provincial-support/restrictions
The latest updates, including case counts, prevention, risks and to find a testing centre near you: http://www.bccdc.ca/ or follow @CDCofBC on Twitter.
For COVID-19 exposure events, updates and information, visit:
* BCCDC: http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/public-exposures
* Fraser Health: fraserhealth.ca/covid19exposure
* Interior Health: https://news.interiorhealth.ca/news/public-exposures/
* Island Health: https://www.islandhealth.ca/learn-about-health/covid-19/data-outbreaks-facilities
* Northern Health: https://www.northernhealth.ca/health-topics/outbreaks-and-exposures
* Vancouver Coastal Health: http://www.vch.ca/covid-19/public-exposures
