B.C. case numbers break record, with nearly 3,000 confirmed in 24 hours even with reduced testing capacity

Another daily case record has been broken in British Columbia, with nearly 3,000 people confirmed to have COVID-19 in the most recent 24-hour period.

The update was announced by the province's top doctor during a news conference Wednesday.

Dr. Bonnie Henry said 2,944 cases have been added to the provincial tally, a record based on data released so far by the province. However, numbers provided earlier this month were "preliminary," and final counts expected later in the day will confirm whether the latest numbers were higher than recorded over the weekend.

Active cases, a total not provided in the last two updates on the spread of the disease, are now at 16,014 – also a record in B.C.

The records come as B.C. struggles with its capacity for testing. Last week, provincial health officials changed the criteria for COVID-19 tests, as labs and testing centres were unable to keep up with demand.

Currently, only those who are not vaccinated, are higher risk or have more severe symptoms are told to get a PCR test. Others may be able to find out if they have the disease through rapid testing, but those tests too have been hard to access.

Instead, Henry said previously that those with mild symptoms should essentially assume they have COVID-19, even without confirmation through testing, and self-isolate.

But when asked whether this meant the daily data may be less accurate, Henry essentially said it always has been.

She said officials have known "all along" that the actual case totals are between three and five times higher than the case numbers reported. 

And even though testing capacity is being pushed, thousands of tests are still being conducted each day in B.C.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said 19,681 lab tests were completed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and a total of about 75,000 tests were run over the weekend.

The seven-day average positivity rate in B.C. is now sitting at around 14.5 per cent in the province, with similar rates noted in all five health authorities.

According to the Health Ministry, 206 patients in hospital are currently considered infectious, and 66 of those are being treated in critical care units.

Five people have died over the last five reporting periods of the novel coronavirus. The deaths bring the total since the start of the pandemic to 2,419 lives.

Three of the people who died between Friday's update and Wednesday's lived in the Island Health region. The other two lived in Interior and Northern Health.

Of the new cases announced during the news conference, 1,591 were in the most populous health authority, Fraser.

Another 571 were recorded in Vancouver Coastal Health, 374 in Interior Health, 309 in Island Health and 99 in Northern.

Of the cases confirmed between Dec. 24 and 29, 2,452 are of the Omicron variant, and about half of those cases were in Vancouver Coastal Health.

Other data included in a news release from the Health Ministry later on Wednesday was a breakdown of vaccination rates:

• 88 per cent of eligible people aged five and up have had at least one dose of vaccine;
• 82.8 per cent of eligible people five and older have had two shots;
• 91.9 per cent of eligible people 12 and older have had their first dose, and 89.1 per cent of that age group has had both; and
• 19.8 per cent of eligible adults have received their third or booster dose.

Health officials maintain that getting vaccinated is still one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of COVID-19, and say that even though the vaccine doesn't make recipients immune to catching the disease, it may make their symptoms less severe.

In the past two weeks, there have been significantly higher hospitalizations per 100,000 population in the unvaccinated (17.5 cases, compared to 0 in partially vaccinated patients, and 1.2 in fully vaccinated.)

Looking at cases per 100,000 population, after adjusting for age, more people who are unvaccinated contracted the disease. That figure is 318.5, compared to 257.6 fully vaccinated people, and 82.6 partially vaccinated.