COVID-19 prevalence high and rising across most of province as BCCDC revamps reporting dashboards
The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – in B.C. wastewater is high and rising across most regions, according to the latest data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
The BCCDC released its first weekly data update of the 2024-25 respiratory illness season Thursday, and took the opportunity to dramatically revise the information it presents and the way it is presented.
Gone is the previous year's "COVID-19 Situation Report" dashboard, replaced with a new dashboard titled "Viral Respiratory Outcomes."
While the situation report included specific numbers for newly confirmed infections, hospital admissions, critical care admissions and deaths within 30 days of a positive COVID test, the new dashboard reports the latter three numbers as a rate per million residents.
The Viral Respiratory Outcomes report does not include new infection totals at all, though that information – alongside test positivity rates and positive test counts for other respiratory viruses – is available on a separate dashboard.
Wastewater data
The BCCDC has also revised how it presents wastewater data, adding clear definitions for "high," "moderate" and "low" concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses, as well as indicators of the ongoing trend in each region.
According to Thursday's update, wastewater facilities in every regional health authority except Island Health showed "high" levels of the COVID-19 virus.
To reach this conclusion, the BCCDC averages the viral load per capita at all monitored wastewater treatment plants in a given region and compares it to "the distribution of all averaged viral load per capita data in the most recently completed respiratory season," a period stretching back roughly to the end of August 2023.
If the latest data is above 75 per cent of last respiratory season's average, the viral concentration in a given region is considered "high."
Island Health's COVID concentrations were "moderate" in this week's update, a label reflecting a range between 25 and 75 per cent of last year's average. Concentrations below 25 per cent of last year's average would be considered "low."
The four health authorities with high viral concentrations also showed a "statistically significant increasing trend" in their wastewater during the last epidemiological week, according to the BCCDC, while Island Health showed a "statistically significant decreasing trend."
Hospitalization data
The exact number of test-positive COVID-19 patients in B.C. hospitals as of Thursday – a number CTV News has been tracking and graphing since the start of the pandemic in 2020 – is no longer available.
In its place, the BCCDC is now publishing a seven-day rolling average of the hospitalization total, with the most recent published data corresponding to the end of the last epidemiological week, in this case, Saturday, Sept. 28.
Previously, the agency's weekly updates included the total number of people hospitalized as of the date of the report. It was the only statistic the BCCDC reported in real time. All of the other data reported was from the most recent epidemiological week, meaning it was at least five days old by the time it was published. The timeliness of the hospitalized population data was part of the reason CTV News continued tracking it.
As of Sept. 28, the seven day rolling average for the number of test-positive COVID-19 patients in B.C. hospitals was 205.71. That's a substantial increase from where the average stood a week earlier, on Sept. 21, when it was 181.71. However, the total remains well below where it was in previous years.
The BCCDC's revamped data shows a seven-day rolling average of 316.43 on Sept. 28, 2023, and an average of 328 on Sept. 28, 2022.
Cases and severe outcome rates
During the most recent epidemiological week, which spanned Sept. 22 through 28, the province conducted 3,488 lab tests for SARS-CoV-2, and 632 of them came back positive.
That works out to a test positivity rate of 18.1 per cent, up from 17.2 per cent the week before.
Other respiratory viruses are not yet circulating in high numbers, according to the BCCDC data, which shows positivity rates for Influenza A and RSV at 1.9 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively.
For COVID, the rates of severe outcomes – hospital admissions, critical care admissions and deaths within 30 days of a positive test – were 14.1 per million, 2.5 per million and 2.6 per million, respectively.
Those rates can be used to extrapolate province-wide totals of at least 80 new hospital admissions, 14 critical care admissions and 14 deaths during the epidemiological week in question, though it should be noted that the BCCDC's data for these categories is typically incomplete when it is first reported and is adjusted upwards in subsequent weeks.
The BCCDC says the change to rates rather than raw numbers is intended "to make comparisons between health regions, age groups, or respiratory seasons more accurate and meaningful."
The new Viral Respiratory Outcomes dashboard includes tabs that allow users to make such comparisons.
During the most recent epidemiological week, Northern Health had the highest rate of hospital admissions per million, at 29.67. It also had the highest rate of critical care admissions, at 6.59 per million.
Interior Health had the highest death rate, at 5.56 per million.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
A turbulent campaign nears its finale as Americans choose between Harris and Trump
A presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancour headed for its Election Day finale on Tuesday, as Americans decided whether to send Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate Kamala Harris to the Oval Office.
Government calls $9M condo purchase an 'operational decision'
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly defends the purchase of a $9 million condo for the Consulate General of New York City at a parliamentary committee, as a necessary investment.
Suspect seen shooting man during Toronto-area home invasion in new video
Police have released video footage that appears to show a suspect shooting a man who had attempted to intervene in a home invasion in York Region on Monday night.
B.C.'s chief electoral officer defends election integrity after 'human errors'
British Columbia's chief electoral officer says "extremely challenging weather conditions" and a new voting system factored into human errors that saw ballots go uncounted in the provincial election — though none were large enough to change results.
Trump snaps at reporter when asked about abortion: 'Stop talking about that'
Donald Trump is refusing to say how he voted on Florida's abortion measure -- and getting testy about it.
Lamborghini driver who crashed into parked cars while trying to pass streetcar sentenced to prison
A mortgage broker who totalled his Lamborghini and left a passenger with life-altering injuries after trying to pass a Toronto streetcar at nearly three times the speed limit has been handed a two-and-a-half year prison sentence.
'I’m not proud of it': Jason Kelce apologizes after video shows him spiking a cellphone after fan used a homophobic slur
Jason Kelce issued an apology during ESPN's 'Monday Night Countdown' after a viral video captured a 'heated moment' between the retired Super Bowl champion and a fan over the weekend.
How exit polls work and what they will tell us on election night
Exit polls are a set of surveys that ask voters whom they voted for, as well as additional questions about their political opinions, the factors they considered in the election and their own backgrounds more broadly.
Trudeau and Harris? Poilievre and Trump? Here's who Canadians think would work best with: survey
As Americans prepare to elect their next president on Tuesday, new data from the Angus Reid Institute suggests Canadians hold differing views as to which federal party leaders would be best suited to deal with either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.