Tuesday October 13, 2020 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., editor | Island Social Trends
Over the weekend there have been four new test-positive cases of COVID-19 on Vancouver Island. That’s out of a total number of 549 new cases province-wide.
Those are stats for four 24-hour periods over the Thanksgiving long weekend (from Friday to Tuesday, October 9 to 13).
If there is an upswing in cases as a result of people being exposed to COVID-19 over the long weekend, symptoms will show up within five to seven days, said Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry today.
The new cases on Vancouver Island fell into these age groups:
- 20 to 29 years – 4 cases
- 30 to 39 years – 2 cases
- 40 to 49 years – 1 case
- 60 to 69 years – 3 cases
COVID province-wide:
In total in BC over the last four days there were 549 new cases, or about 137 per day on average. The total number of COVID cases in BC is now 10,734, of which 1,476 are active.
Now 8,974 people are considered to have recovered from test-positive cases of COVID-19, but there are still now 3,618 people in self-isolation due to known exposure to the infectious virus (the highest number of people yet who are under active public health surveillance).
Hospitalizations:
The key public health reason to key an eye on the number of hospitalizations is about not overwhelming the hospitals and the health care professionals who work there.
There have been 861 hospitalizations to date. Currently 77 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 of whom 24 are in ICU.
To be sure, all frontline health care workers have been under a lot of strain for the many months of the pandemic to date, and the pandemic of course still continues.
There are also the material and organizational resources of the health care system to keep an eye on, including PPE, reagents for testing, ventilators, available beds and acute care areas.
Deaths on Thanksgiving weekend:
There were five COVID deaths in BC over Thanksgiving weekend. The impact on families to lose someone during a family holiday time will be strong.
Reminder about sports interactions:
Keeping community transmission low and “flattening the curve” is about keeping the number of cases low enough so that the health care system can handle the load.
Today Dr Henry was precautionary about families and sport participants being selective about their exposure to other people during a moderate return to local, community and school team sport activities.
Dr Henry urged parents to avoid socializing with other parents and people around the play areas, as one way to minimize spread.
Stats at BC CDC:
All the details about COVID-19 in BC are available anytime on the BC Centre for Disease Control website. | BC CDC data about COVID
