997 new cases of #COVID19 announced in B.C. today — but for the first time in three weeks, the rolling average has gone down.
However, active cases still up, people in critical care at a record 105, and two new deaths.
Today's chart.
After a slow long weekend, B.C. is back to its previous pace on vaccinations, with 34,040 done yesterday, as we reach the 20% mark of eligible people getting at least one shot.
The daily number can go up by a little bit with current supply, but not by too much.
The numbers today are somewhat encouraging, within the the context of the last three weeks of #OperationDontBlowThis
But a rise in hospitalizations is inevitable for a bit because of the lag from cases.
People in critical care now up 33% in a week.
We've seen a doubling of the rolling average in the last month, and there's still lots of people 60-80 who haven't gotten vaccinated, so it's very reasonable to see a rise in hospitalizations.
- We have a year's worth of data to understand these trendlines/lags generally with the virus
- Variants are a question mark that push things negatively
- Vaccinations are a question mark that push things positively
So the fact that we've been average more than 500 cases a day for six weeks, but deaths are still under five a day?
Vaccinations are playing a role.
The fact we're at an all time high in critical cases, even with vaccinations?
Variants could be playing a role.
And this is what current and regularly updated data (preferably in an easy to access format) is so helpful: it allows us to interpret these things in real time, and allows quantitative data to fill the conversation, instead of qualitative anecdotes.
I'll continue to push.
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Let's do a thread, with a couple of new charts, looking at where B.C. is at in the pandemic, and what we can say is very concerning, decently concerning, and not too concerning.
one might wonder who this will help at this point, but i follow the advice of the teens
What's very concerning?
Overall transmission.
It continues to go up, and the rolling average/active case trendline is not slowing down one bit right now.
Until it does, there's lots of worry of this getting out of control, in a way B.C. has avoided to this point.
Here are the daily numbers from B.C. to Quebec today, adjusted if they all had B.C.'s population:
The Canucks are a good example on how an intense focus on variants instead of the broader picture of a virus that has killed millions of people can make things more confusing for the general public
A group of 20 incredibly fit young people were quickly infected by a virus that has put them out of commission, in a province where transmission is quickly on the rise!
That's a straightforward story that's easy to understand and communicate to the public.
But a lot of that got obscured, partly because the Canucks weren't particularly transparent (leading to anecdotal and sometimes clashing reports by journalists), and partly because of the intense interest right now in some quarters to talk about the P1 variant.
This was a question from @CBCtanya that the two of us put together, we told the government we would be asking about it, and it is disappointing for Dr. Henry to say things in response that are not true.
we got through the last week without any official in british columbia saying "the easter bunny's travel is essential and they have been vaccinated" and let's get our wins where we can right now
honestly feel bad for people who are incredibly angry, can't handle reporters having personalities, and have missed my reporting for months and months
Lot of valid frustration out there, 14 months of COVID fatigue makes everyone on edge, third wave full of new questions, journalists can be a proxy for anger towards politicians.
We all need to find healthy ways to get through the next couple months.