VANCOUVER -- The B.C. Centre for Disease Control's promised dashboard of COVID-19 cases, immunization rates and test positivity went live Thursday, providing detailed information journalists and the general public had been requesting for months.
The dashboard includes interactive maps of B.C.'s "local health areas" and "community health service areas," colour-coded according to the number of cases per 100,000 residents recorded each day over a seven-day period.
The maps can also be changed to show percentage of adults 18 and older or 50 and older who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, or the test positivity rate over seven days.
In addition to the maps, the dashboard includes tabs showing the raw number of cases in each local health area over the same seven-day timeframe, the infection curve for each of the province's local health areas since the start of the pandemic, and the change in case rates for each region over the last two weeks.
The dashboard replaces reports that the BCCDC began publishing earlier this month, after leaked documents showed that provincial health officials had been compiling more data than they had been regularly releasing up to that point.
The latest map data on the dashboard shows coronavirus cases recorded from May 11 to 17 and immunization percentages as of May 20.
During that time period, Abbotsford and Surrey were the only local health areas to record more than 20 cases per 100,000 residents per day. Specifically, Abbotsford saw 27 cases per 100,000, while Surrey saw 27.2.
Within those local health areas, certain neighbourhoods were more hard hit than others. Surrey's West Newton community health service area saw the highest per-capita case rate in the province, with 40.7 cases per 100,000 residents during the week in question.
The neighbouring Whalley, East Newton and Panorama areas each saw more than 30 cases per 100,000. The only other community health service area in the Lower Mainland that topped the 30-cases-per-100,000 mark was West Abbotsford, where the daily case rate rate was 34.1 per 100,000.
Relatedly, these neighbourhoods had some of the highest test positivity rates in the province, with 22.9 per cent of tests in West Newton coming back positive between May 11 and 17. The rate in Whalley was 19.1 per cent, East Newton's was 17.9 per cent and Panorama's was 16.5 per cent. West Abbotsford saw a 15.8 per cent test positivity rate.
Overall, Surrey saw a total of 986 cases during the week shown on the map, and Abbotsford saw 305.
In each city, however, the high numbers still represent an improvement from the previous week. Surrey's new caseload declined to 986 from 1,372 during the preceding seven days, and Abbotsford's dropped to 305 from 370.
In fact, the only local health area in Fraser Health that saw an increase in cases over the seven days that ended on May 17 was New Westminster, which saw 93 new cases during the week in question, up from 77 the week before.
Vaccination data shows each of the hard-hit Surrey neighbourhoods listed previously have reached at least 60 per cent of adults 18 and older with at least one dose. Whalley's rate was 60 per cent as of May 20, while West Newton's was 61 per cent, East Newton's was 63 per cent and Panorama's was 69 per cent.
The BCCDC COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard can be found here.
