BCCDC removes data on COVID-19 infection outcomes by vaccination status from dashboard
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control has stopped reporting case outcomes by vaccination status on its COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard because the data had become "hard to interpret," according to the Ministry of Health.
A note placed on the dashboard's introduction page Thursday indicates that the "outcomes by vax" and "vax donut charts" pages had been "retired."
The note did not indicate why the data was being removed, so CTV News asked the ministry for an explanation. An emailed response from a ministry spokesperson read, in part:
"These indicators were initially created because we wanted to identify breakthrough infections as we were ramping up the vaccination campaign. As most of the population has now been vaccinated with at least two doses of vaccine and many more have been infected with COVID-19, the data became hard to interpret."
The pages in question showed the number of people across various age groups who had been hospitalized, admitted to critical care, or died over the preceding few months, sorting each age group by vaccination status. They also provided age-standardized rates of hospitalization, critical care admission and death for people with different vaccination statuses in B.C.
WHAT THE DATA SHOWED
As recently as last week, the data showed higher rates of adverse outcomes for unvaccinated people than for people with two doses of vaccine, and higher rates for those individuals than for people who had received at least one booster shot.
These findings were not always immediately obvious, however, given the massive difference in the overall size of the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, and the fact that the various Omicron variants that have been the dominant strain of the coronavirus this year are good at infecting vaccinated people.
In raw numbers, the vast majority of people testing positive for COVID-19, ending up in hospital, requiring critical care, and dying from COVID-19 in 2022, according to the dashboard, have been people who are vaccinated.
This is almost entirely due to the fact that the vaccinated group is so much larger than the unvaccinated one. Among adults, 94 per cent of British Columbians have had at least one dose of vaccine, leaving just six per cent – or fewer than 300,000 people, according to the latest population estimates from Statistics Canada – in the dashboard's "unvaccinated" category.
Looking at rates of adverse outcomes per 100,000 people in each group consistently showed more unvaccinated people than vaccinated ones of the same age ending up in hospital, in critical care, or dead.
WHY IT WAS HARD TO INTERPRET
The ministry gave three main reasons for its conclusion that the data had become hard to interpret and needed to be discontinued.
First, it said, the Omicron variant has made COVID-19 infection much more widespread, while also making data on infections less reliable.
"With the Omicron variant, we don’t have a complete understanding of the case burden in the population, given the use of rapid, point-of-care tests," the ministry said.
Very few people qualify for a lab-based PCR test under the province's current testing strategy, meaning the data on the dashboard – which only reflected information about lab-confirmed cases – did not reflect a complete picture of COVID-19 transmission in B.C.
Second, according to the ministry, "many of the cases in hospital are incidental findings."
Health officials have previously estimated that about half of the people reported in hospital with COVID-19 at any given time were hospitalized for reasons unrelated to the coronavirus and tested positive incidentally.
The ministry did not elaborate on how incidental hospitalizations – which have been included in the province's hospitalization count since January – rendered the data on the dashboard hard to interpret.
Third, the ministry said:
"The timelines of when different groups of people received their last dose of vaccine and/or when infection occurred are now quite variable and comparing provides inaccurate results."
In place of the removed dashboard pages, the ministry referred CTV News to vaccine effectiveness studies summarized on the BCCDC website. The most recent of these was posted on March 8, and references data collected from September 2021 to February 2022, nearly six months ago.
"Vaccine effectiveness is a more rigorous and systematic way to assess the vaccine outcomes and assess the strength of protection from the vaccine," the ministry said, adding that such studies also "take longer to conduct."
The ministry did not say when the next vaccine effectiveness study would be posted.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Air traveller complaints to Canadian Transportation Agency hit new high
The Canadian Transportation Agency has hit a record high of more than 71,000 complaints in a backlog. The quasi-judicial regulator and tribunal tasked with settling disputes between customers and the airlines says the backlog is growing because the number of incoming complaints keeps increasing.
LIVE @ 1:15 PT B.C. premier to give announcement related to public drug use
B.C.'s premier is scheduled to give an update Friday about public drug use in the province.
Orca calf that was trapped in B.C. lagoon for weeks swims free
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
AFN chief says Air Canada offered a 15% discount after her headdress was mishandled
After the Assembly of First Nations' national chief complained to Air Canada about how staffers treated her and her ceremonial headdress on a flight this week, she says the airline responded by offering a 15 per cent discount on her next flight.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
Flight attendant indicted in attempt to record teen girl in airplane bathroom
An American Airlines flight attendant was indicted Thursday after authorities said he tried to secretly record video of a 14-year-old girl using an airplane bathroom last September.
76ers All-Star centre Joel Embiid says he has Bell's palsy
Philadelphia 76ers All-Star centre Joel Embiid has been diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis he says has affected him since before the play-in tournament.
DEVELOPING Bird flu outbreaks: WHO weighs in on public health risk
The current overall public health risk posed by the H5N1 bird flu virus is low, the World Health Organization said on Friday, but urged countries to stay alert for cases of animal-to-human transmission.
Island near Mull of Kintyre for sale for US$3.1 million
An idyllic 453-acre private island is up for sale off the west coast of Scotland and it comes with sandy beaches, puffins galore, seven houses, a pub, a helipad and a flock of black-faced sheep.