B.C. COVID-19 hospitalizations up nearly 25% this week

A sign at the BC Centre for Disease Control is seen in this photo from the BCCDC website.

The number of patients with COVID-19 in B.C. hospitals rose substantially this week, climbing back above the 200 mark for the first time since the start of the month.

There were 240 people hospitalized with the disease as of Thursday, a 24-per-cent increase from the 193 hospitalizations the B.C. Centre for Disease Control reported last week.

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursdays in 2023 is shown. (CTV)

The hospitalized population is still below the lowest point it hit in all of 2022, but the latest numbers reflect a significant shift from the declining trend that started this year.

Hospitalization numbers shown on the graphs in this story reflect what the province calls the "hospital census": The total number of test-positive COVID-19 patients, regardless of whether the disease was what caused their hospital admission.

Health officials estimate that between 40 and 50 per cent of each week's hospital census is people who had serious cases of COVID and required hospital care. The rest of the total is so-called "incidental" hospitalizations, meaning cases in which a person was hospitalized for some other reason and tested positive after admission.

Since the BCCDC began counting hospitalizations in this way in January 2022, the hospital census has risen as high as 985 and fallen as low as 188 on Thursdays.

The number of patients in B.C. hospitals with COVID-19 on Thursdays since the province switched to a "hospital census" model is shown. (CTV)

OTHER DATA

This week's sharp increase in the hospital census comes alongside rising official case counts and increased concentrations of the coronavirus in wastewater in many communities.

The BCCDC's summary of wastewater data is updated later in the week than other numbers, but the most recent data available shows concentrations of the virus rising at all of the monitored wastewater treatment facilities outside the Lower Mainland, as well as at the Northwest Langley plant.

Concentrations were still showing modest declines at the other four facilities in Metro Vancouver as of Thursday afternoon.

The BCCDC also reported a slight uptick in the number of new, lab-confirmed infections this week, with 356 recorded from Feb. 12 to 18, up from 341 recorded the week before.

These totals are not considered an accurate representation of the true spread of COVID-19 in B.C., because only a small fraction of the provincial population qualifies for lab-based testing, and the results of at-home rapid antigen tests are not tracked or reported.

Experts estimate that the true number of cases in the province each week is roughly 100 times greater than the number reported by the BCCDC.