B.C. folks under 30: if you registered for your vaccine but haven't gotten a text/email asking you to book by the time you wake up tomorrow morning, there's no harm calling and checking that they have all the right information
I didn't get a text because it turned out there was an issue with how my information was inputted in their system, and I've heard that with other folks too.
But I've heard good things about calling in and getting it quickly sorted out, and experienced it too.
(note: if you do this tactic, it seems sometimes you can book immediately on the phone, and sometimes you're still told to wait for the text/email — but at the very least it should help quell your I JUST WANT TO BOOK anxiety)
Over the last two months, we've cleared a lot of hurdles in our vaccine campaign:
- Prince Rupert/Whistler show they work on a large scale!
- We're getting 50,000+ people done in a day!
- 90% of seniors are signing up!
the lack big question is getting Millennials signed up
As of May 9, about 70% of B.C. residents 18-40 had gotten registered for a shot (slightly higher for people in their 30s, lower for people in their 20s).
If that number gets up to 80-85% and everyone follows through, then we should be in a tremendous position going forward.
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An average of 453 cases of #COVID19 announced in B.C. over the last three days, as the province's trendline continues to go down at a brisk, consistent pace.
Hospitalizations now at 350, lowest since April 10.
14 deaths, reflecting case counts a month ago.
Today's chart.
has dr. henry always gone "thing x reminds us of collective action y" or i am just more attuned to it today
An average of 48,355 people were given a vaccine shot in B.C. over the last three days — a 24% increase over the previous weekend.
Approaching the halfway point for all people in the entire province having at least one dose.
I think the thing about reporters increasingly showing their frustration with B.C.'s transparency is that pretty much everybody has changed their lives in huge ways to deal with a deadly pandemic, and the province's communications strategy seems to have stayed the same.
Taking hours to provide information to some requests and weeks for others, providing data only when it can have a shiny bow on it, hearing requests for transparency changes and sticking with the status quo...that's politics.
Most reporters, at a certain level, accept that.
So you'll make a note in your story that the government didn't respond, or that B.C. lags behind province X in metric Y, or that you haven't gotten your FOI back, and move on. There's another story to cover. The daily battle for information continues.
722 cases of #COVID19 announced in B.C. today — the 19th straight day the province's rolling average has gone down, though this time only by a tiny bit.
Hospitalizations down to 445, and seven new deaths, highest since April 21.
Today's chart.
46,946 people received vaccine shots in B.C. yesterday (2nd highest in the campaign), including 3,605 second doses, the highest mark since February.
We're on pace for every adult getting their first dose in the next five weeks.
We've gone from 60-70 hospitalizations a day in B.C. to 30-50, which is why we're now seeing this decrease.
At the same time, it means we're still going to be over 300 hospitalizations, concentrated heavily in Fraser Health, for a while yet.
Since today's emergency press conference on #COVID19 data in B.C. is telephone only, I'm going to use this thread to livetweet the questions and answers in a straightforward fashion, instead of the usual charts/context/jokes approach
Dr. Réka Gustafson begins the press conference, says she's going to "raise some awareness" on the public health surveillance done by B.C.
Explains how data is used for making decisions.
"It's an established process, and with every week and day we try to improve it."
Gustafson says the province "makes as much of the data as possible … available publicly."
Says "there has been a particular interest in the data".
Dr. Henry says the data "is for decision making" and there is weekly technical meetings.
What's probably going to happen is the government will provide information on neighbourhood case counts at some point in the near future.
They will applaud themselves for being transparent.
on a related note, the bccdc dashboard (which the government often trumpets as the way they are transparent) is having a "systems" issue for the third time in four days