Health
Active COVID-19 infections, and hospitalizations continue to fall across B.C. – Coast Reporter
The trend of fewer British Columbians in hospital with COVID-19, and fewer residents battling active infections continued on February 8, as the government released new data.
There are now 234 people in B.C. hospitals battling the virus that spawned a global pandemic. That is 19 fewer than the last update, on February 5, and the lowest total since November 20, when there were 227 people in B.C. hospitals with the virus. Of those now in hospital, 69 individuals are in intensive care units (ICU).
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Health Minister Adrian Dix told media that when new hospital beds that the province has added during the pandemic are taken into consideration, B.C.’s hospital occupancy rate is 70.4%. When new ICU beds are taken into consideration, the province’s ICUs are at 52% occupancy.
The number of people known to be carrying the virus in B.C. has also been on the decline. There are now 3,976 people who have been infected and have not yet tested negative multiple times, which is the process for considering people as having recovered. That is the lowest total since November 6, when there were 3,741 people with active infections. Given that B.C. had a record 10,039 people with active infections on December 14, that metric has fallen considerably.
Unfortunately, B.C. recorded 13 additional deaths that health officials attribute to the virus. That raises the province’s death toll from COVID-19 to 1,259.
New cases, however, continue to pile up. In the three days since the last data update, B.C. has recorded 1,236 new cases. That includes 428 cases on February 6, 465 cases on February 7, and 343 cases in the past 24 hours, according to provincial health officer Bonnie Henry.
The new cases push the province’s total number of infections above 70,000, to 70,952. Henry noted that the province has so far had 40 cases of COVID-19 variants: 25 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first discovered in the U.K., and 15 cases of the B.1.351 variant first found in South Africa. There are so far no cases of the Brazilian variant E484K, which was first discovered in Canada during the weekend, with one case in Ontario.
“We have a whole lot of genetic mutations,” Henry said. “We have not found any [cases] of the variant associated with Brazil here in B.C., yet, but we are definitely looking for it.”
Of those infected with COVID-19 in B.C., 65,605 people, or more than 92.4%, have recovered. That percentage of people who have recovered from infections in the province has been rising.
Here is the breakdown of where the 1,236 new cases, detected in the past three days, are located:
• 266 people in Vancouver Coastal Health (21.5%);
• 601 people in Fraser Health (48.6%);
• 86 in Island Health (7%);
• 152 in Interior Health (12.3%); and
• 131 in Northern Health (10.6%).
Vaccinations have been helping reduce infections. So far, 154,496 doses of vaccine have been administered to 142,385 people. So far, 12,111 people have received second doses of the vaccines.
New COVID-19 outbreaks have been detected at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital in Abbotsford, and at the Dawson Creek and District Hospital in Dawson Creek.
Two hospital outbreaks have now been declared over. They were at Mount St. Joseph’s Hospital in Vancouver, and Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in Nanaimo.
The nine hospitals in B.C. with active outbreaks now include:
• Abbotsford Regional Hospital in Abbotsford;
• Burnaby General Hospital in Burnaby;
• Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake;
• Dawson Creek and District Hospital in Dawson Creek;
• Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster;
• Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops;
• St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver;
• Surrey Memorial Hospital in Surrey; and
• University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George.
Outbreaks at two seniors’ homes have also been deemed to be over: at Evergreen Baptist Care Society in White Rock, and at Hilltop House in Squamish.
That means that there are now COVID-19 outbreaks at 22 seniors’ care homes, assisted-living facilities and retirement residences across the province.
The two active outbreaks at seniors’ living facilities in Vancouver Coastal Health are at Minoru Residence in Richmond and Holy Family long-term care centre in Vancouver.
There are 12 active outbreaks at seniors’ living facilities in Fraser Health. They are at:
• Bradley Centre in Chilliwack;
• Concord By the Sea in White Rock;
• CareLife Fleetwood in Surrey;
• Eagle Ridge Manor in Port Moody;
• George Derby Centre in Burnaby;
• Glenwood Seniors Community in Agassiz;
• Hilton Villa Seniors Community in Surrey;
• Madison Care Centre in Coquitlam;
• Mountain View Manor in Ladner;
• Royal City Manor in New Westminster;
• St. Michael’s Centre Extended Care in Burnaby; and
• Suncreek Village in Surrey.
The two active outbreaks at a seniors’ living facilities in Northern Health are at Jubilee Lodge in Prince George, and Acropolis Manor in Prince Rupert.
The six active outbreaks at seniors’ living facilities in Interior Health are at:
• Brocklehurst Gemstone Care Centre in Kamloops;
• Creekside Landing in Vernon;
• Heritage Square in Vernon;
• Noric House in Vernon;
• Sunnybank Retirement Home in Oliver; and
• Westsyde Care Residences in Kamloops.
There are no outbreaks at seniors’ facilities in Island Health.
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Interior Health says it delivered nearly 800,000 immunization doses last year — a number almost equal to the region’s population.
The released figure of 784,980 comes during National Immunization Awareness Week, which runs April 22-30.
The health care organization, which serves a large area of around 820,000, says it’s using the occasion to boost vaccine rates even though there may be post-pandemic vaccine fatigue.
“This is a very important initiative because it ensures that communicable diseases stay away from a region,” said Dr. Silvina Mema of Interior Health.
However, not all those doses were for COVID; the tally includes childhood immunizations plus immunizations for adults.
But IHA said immunizations are down from the height of the pandemic, when COVID vaccines were rolled out, though it seems to be on par with previous pre-pandemic years.
Interior Health says it’d like to see the overall immunization rate rise.
“Certainly there are some folks who have decided a vaccine is not for them. And they have their reasons,” said Jonathan Spence, manager of communicable disease prevention and control at Interior Health.
“I think there’s a lot of people who are hesitant, but that’s just simply because they have questions.
“And that’s actually part of what we’re celebrating this week is those public health nurses, those pharmacists, who can answer questions and answer questions with really good information around immunization.”
Mima echoed that sentiment.
“We take immunization very seriously. It’s a science-based program that has saved countless lives across the world and eliminated diseases that were before a threat and now we don’t see them anymore,” she said.
“So immunization is very important.”
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that samples of pasteurized milk had tested positive for remnants of the bird flu virus that has infected dairy cows.
The agency stressed that the material is inactivated and that the findings “do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers.” Officials added that they’re continuing to study the issue.
“To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA said in a statement.
The announcement comes nearly a month after an avian influenza virus that has sickened millions of wild and commercial birds in recent years was detected in dairy cows in at least eight states. The Agriculture Department says 33 herds have been affected to date.
FDA officials didn’t indicate how many samples they tested or where they were obtained. The agency has been evaluating milk during processing and from grocery stores, officials said. Results of additional tests are expected in “the next few days to weeks.”
The PCR lab test the FDA used would have detected viral genetic material even after live virus was killed by pasteurization, or heat treatment, said Lee-Ann Jaykus, an emeritus food microbiologist and virologist at North Carolina State University
“There is no evidence to date that this is infectious virus and the FDA is following up on that,” Jaykus said.
Officials with the FDA and the USDA had previously said milk from affected cattle did not enter the commercial supply. Milk from sick animals is supposed to be diverted and destroyed. Federal regulations require milk that enters interstate commerce to be pasteurized.
Because the detection of the bird flu virus known as Type A H5N1 in dairy cattle is new and the situation is evolving, no studies on the effects of pasteurization on the virus have been completed, FDA officials said. But past research shows that pasteurization is “very likely” to inactivate heat-sensitive viruses like H5N1, the agency added.
Matt Herrick, a spokesman for the International Dairy Foods Association, said that time and temperature regulations for pasteurization ensure that the commercial U.S. milk supply is safe. Remnants of the virus “have zero impact on human health,” he wrote in an email.
Scientists confirmed the H5N1 virus in dairy cows in March after weeks of reports that cows in Texas were suffering from a mysterious malady. The cows were lethargic and saw a dramatic reduction in milk production. Although the H5N1 virus is lethal to commercial poultry, most infected cattle seem to recover within two weeks, experts said.
To date, two people in U.S. have been infected with bird flu. A Texas dairy worker who was in close contact with an infected cow recently developed a mild eye infection and has recovered. In 2022, a prison inmate in a work program caught it while killing infected birds at a Colorado poultry farm. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Canada is about where it should be when it comes to childhood vaccines, but for adult vaccinations it’s a different story.
Dr. Vivien Brown of Immunize Canada says the overall population should have rates of between 80 and 90 per cent for most vaccines, but that is not the case.
She says most children are in that range but not for adult vaccines and ultimately the most at-risk populations are not being reached.
She says the population is under immunized for conditions such as pneumonia, shingles, tetanus, and pertussis.
Brown wants people to talk with their family physician or pharmacist to see if they are up-to-date on vaccines, and to get caught up because many are “killer diseases.”
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