Tuesday September 22, 2020 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., editor | Island Social Trends
In BC at September 21, the COVID-19 case total stands at 8,208. Of those, 203 (2.5%) have been occured for people on Vancouver Island.
Most COVID cases in BC have occurred in the Greater Vancouver and Lower Mainland areas.
Of the 366 new cases reported for BC for the last three reporting periods (September 19 to 21), seven (1.9%) were on Vancouver Island.
There are 1,987 people actively dealing with COVID-19 infection in BC, with 11 of those on Vancouver Island. That’s less than one percent.
There are 60 people presently in hospital in BC with COVID-19, but none are patients in Island Health. Over one-third of the hospitalized patients right now are in intensive care or critical care. To date, 709 people in BC have been hospitalized due to COVID-19, of which 25 (3.5%) were in Island Health.
Four people died from COVID-19 over the three days since the Friday COVID report; three were in long-term care and another had been in hospital in Northern Health already for a while, said Dr Henry. The death total in BC stands at 227, with five of those among Vancouver Island patients.
Islanders seeing less of COVID-19:
There appears to be less spread of COVID-19 on Vancouver Island, where people try to actively get outdoors in fresh air. As Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry says, outdoors is better than indoors when it comes to avoiding the airborne or moist-droplet spread of the COVID-19 virus.
The COVID-19 virus is seen to spread in higher-density populated areas, in communal living settings (such as care homes), and within close-contact (less than 2 metres distance between people) especially where sharing of air space is prolonged in lengthy conversations in poorly ventilated areas.
Most cases in adults:
On Vancouver Island, 13 kids under age 19 have contracted COVID-19 (three of those under age 10). The bulk of cases are among working-age adults: 81 (39.9%) of cases in people under age 40.
Of the seven new cases on Vancouver Island over the last three days, one case was in a child, one in a teen, one in age 20-29, and four cases in the 30-39 year age grouping.
Winter is coming:
As the weather gets cooler and people spend more time indoors, there is more potential for spread of the COVID-19 virus. Dr Henry says to keep social bubbles small.
If someone in your personal home-based bubble is elderly or already health-challenged in some way, the public health recommendation is to keep your bubble even smaller.
The public health recommendation is to balance out the size of personal bubbles in relation to workplace contacts and exposure through children who attend in-class learning in schools.
