219 in hospital with COVID-19 in B.C.'s 1st update of 2024

Nearly four years after B.C. confirmed its first case of the novel coronavirus that would come to be known as COVID-19, the province begins 2024 with 219 people in hospital with the disease.

That's a notable jump since the last update provided by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control on Dec. 21, when there were 153 test-positive patients in hospital across the province.

In its latest update, the BCCDC says this roughly 43-per-cent increase in the hospitalized population "is being monitored."

B.C. begins 2024 with 219 people hospitalized with COVID-19.

As seen in the graph, B.C. begins 2024 with fewer COVID patients in hospital than it had at the start of 2023, when there were 356 people hospitalized with the disease.

Indeed, this year's total is B.C.'s lowest-ever start to the year. In the BCCDC's first Thursday update of 2022, there were 324 patients in hospital. In 2021, the total was 372.

CTV News tracks the number of COVID-19 patients reported in B.C. hospitals – also known as the "hospital census" – because it's the only metric the BCCDC reports in real time. The other data the agency shares in its Thursday updates is from the most recent "epidemiological week," which ends the Saturday before the update.

The hospital census is also a useful measure of the impact of COVID-19 on B.C. hospitals over time because the way in which it is counted has remained relatively consistent since the beginning of the pandemic, with only one major switch in counting methods, which occurred in January 2022.

At that time, the BCCDC stopped attempting to limit the total to only patients who were hospitalized because of their COVID-19 diagnosis and began including every test-positive patient, including those who were hospitalized primarily for other reasons.

Since these "incidental" hospitalizations were added to the total, health officials have estimated that between 40 and 50 per cent of patients reported in hospital each week were there because of COVID, while the rest were there incidentally.

Despite this change, week-to-week and month-to-month changes in the hospital census have remained a decent proxy for the severity of the COVID burden on the health-care system, though direct comparisons of pre-change and post-change data should be done with caution.

Another limitation of the BCCDC's hospital census data – and, indeed, all of the data in the agency's weekly updates – is that it doesn't capture the long-term impact of the disease.

In 2023, Statistics Canada found one in nine Canadians – about 3.5 million people – reported suffering long-term effects from a COVID-19 infection. 

OTHER DATA RELEASED THIS WEEK

The BCCDC's data for new lab-confirmed infections and test positivity matches the recent increase in the hospital census.

There were 431 new infections confirmed through government-funded testing during the epidemiological week of Dec. 24 through 30. That's an increase from the 383 seen during the preceding week, though still lower than the totals that were being recorded in early November.

Likewise, the percentage of tests coming back positive during the last epidemiological week rose to 9.1 per cent, up from 8 per cent the week before. This total, too, is lower than what was seen in early November.

Because lab-based testing for COVID-19 in B.C. is extremely limited, the BCCDC also monitors concentrations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater at various treatment plants around the province.

"In the short-term, SARS-CoV-2 trends are variable province-wide," the agency said in its latest update Thursday.

"When observing trends over the past months, however, the signal has been relatively stable at most sites."

This is not the case with other respiratory viruses the BCCDC monitors in wastewater. Both Influenza A and RSV rates have been increasing in recent weeks, according to the latest update.

Influenza has been blamed for the deaths of three children under the age of 10 during the last week of 2023.

• Read more: Third child under 10 dies of complications linked to influenza in B.C. 

Since Aug. 27, 2023, COVID has been the underlying cause of death for 218 people in the province, according to BCCDC data.

The vast majority of those deaths have been among those ages 80 and older, with the median age of deaths caused by COVID in B.C. standing at 84.5 during the time period in question.

One person in their 30s, three people in their 40s, and two people in their 50s have died because of COVID-19 in the last four months.