B.C. COVID-19 update: 5 more deaths as hospitalizations continue to decline

Nurses close the curtains of a patients room in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at Surrey Memorial Hospital in Surrey, B.C., Friday, June 4, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

The number of COVID-19-positive patients in B.C. hospitals continued to decline Thursday, dropping to 867 in the latest update from the provincial Ministry of Health.

That total includes both people whose coronavirus infection is serious enough that they require hospitalization and people who were admitted to hospital for other reasons and tested positive incidentally.

There are 138 people in intensive care units with COVID-19, according to the ministry.

Thursday's update also included five more deaths attributed to the coronavirus, bringing B.C.'s total for the pandemic to 2,730.

None of the latest deaths happened in the Lower Mainland. Two were in the Interior Health region, two were in Island Health and one was in Northern Health.

The ministry does not provide the vaccination status of those whose deaths are attributed to COVID-19 on a daily basis. However, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control provides such data for month-long periods on its COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard. 

Most of the 247 COVID-19 deaths between Jan. 8 and Feb. 4 were among people who had received at least two doses of vaccine. There were 53 deaths (or 21 per cent of the total) among those with two shots and 119 (48 per cent) among those who had three shots. A total of 68 unvaccinated people (28 per cent) died during the period.

Unvaccinated people remain significantly overrepresented in B.C.'s death toll, relative to their share of the population. Unvaccinated people whose deaths are attributed to COVID-19 also tend to be younger than those who are vaccinated and die.

The vast majority of deaths between Jan. 8 and Feb. 4 were among people aged 70 and older. Among those with at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, no one under age 50 died, while three unvaccinated people in their 40s and one in their 30s died during the timeframe.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has noted the elderly don’t always build as strong an immune response from vaccination as younger people. They are also more likely to have multiple existing health conditions. 

Adjusting for age differences between the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, there were 19.3 deaths per 100,000 unvaccinated people during the month in question, while there were 5.4 deaths among those with two or more vaccine doses.

As of Thursday, 90.3 per cent of eligible people ages five and older in B.C. had received at least one shot, and 84.9 per cent had received two.

Among those ages 12 and older, 51.1 per cent had received a booster shot.

Many of those who have died during the pandemic have been residents of long-term care homes.

On Thursday, the ministry announced one new COVID-19 outbreak in such a facility: at Chartwell Langley Gardens in Langley.

Two other outbreaks - at Evergreen House in North Vancouver and Creekside Landing in Vernon - are now over, leaving the province with 53 active outbreaks of COVID-19 in its health-care system.

There were 1,318 new lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Thursday's update, though caseloads are no longer considered a reliable metric in B.C. because the province discourages testing for most people.

Henry has said transmission in the province peaked in early January, citing other metrics - such as test positivity and wastewater surveillance - in drawing that conclusion.

Thursday's update did not include any information on active cases or recoveries, a change Henry said the province would be making at a news conference on Wednesday. The rationale for abandoning those metrics, she said, was that they're no longer "an accurate reflection of what's happening in the community" due to limited testing.