Today there was an update on the state of BC’s preparedness for fighting COVID-19, and how we’ve been doing so far. I’m going to share some of the details here.
As you can see, BC’s daily new cases have been steadily dropping since late March. Deaths have been relatively low, but unfortunately also quite steady from around the same time period.
Confirmed cases have been found all over BC, but primarily in the Vancouver Coastal Health region and the Fraser Health region.
COVID-19 can affect people of any age, but most cases are found in people over 20, and so far all deaths have been connected to people in their 40’s or older.
Testing rules have changed and evolved with our capacity to perform them, as well as the volume of COVID-19 cases we’ve found in BC, as follows (click here for link):
Phase 1 – January 2020: Exposure Based Testing
Testing was limited to travelers with symptoms, or contacts of presumed and confirmed cases.
Phase 2 – March 16th: Targeted Testing
Testing was limited to individuals with respiratory symptoms who are most vulnerable to severe illness and the people who work with these individuals:
(a) hospitalized or likely to be hospitalized patients,
(b) health care workers,
(c) residents of long term care facilities, or
(d) part of an investigation of a cluster or outbreak.
Phase 3 – April 9th: Expanded Testing
Testing is now limited to priority populations for whom results would change their care or the management of the case:
(a) residents of remote, isolated or Indigenous communities,
(b) people living and working in congregate settings (e.g. correctional facilities),
(c) people who are homeless or have unstable housing,
(d) essential service providers (e.g. first responders), or
(e) returning travelers identified at a point of entry to Canada.
We’ve seen a lot of infections from international travel, and until quite recently have been seeing a lot of unknown source community transmission as well. Community transmissions with unknown sources are the most concerning, because they can lead to uncontrolled outbreaks quite easily.
BC has outperformed our best projections for how the infection could have spread in BC. Going forward our models will be based on our own experiences, and not those of other countries and regions.
The entire document is available here, and I highly recommend reading through the whole thing, it’s very informative!
Also in more personal news, I received my first CERB payment in today, which comes as a huge relief to me. I can now start focusing my attention on the next big thing coming up… moving to New Westminster, in the middle of a pandemic!
That’s all for now, stay safe everyone!
BC COVID-19 Info 