So, where is this wave picking up fastest right now?
The Lower Mainland, full stop.
Vancouver still exploding, but Fraser Health picking up speed.
Consistent with what we're seeing in other places with Omicron — it's the densest places getting hit fastest (at least for now).
What can we about the vaccine status of people getting Omicron in British Columbia?
Government only provides data on a rolling weekly basis.
But the per capita rate of people with two doses getting infected doubled last week, compared to only going up 20% for the unvaccinated.
But what does this mean?
Well, it means (very broadly) that unvaccinated people last week got infected at a rate five times higher than unvaccinated people, instead of ten.
Still a big gap!
And ratio for hospitalizations remains the same — and will be key in the weeks ahead.
Where are we in the vaccination campaign?
Here's an *updated* chart, showing total shots per day (1st, 2nd and 3rd) since third doses and first doses for kids began in earnest.
Still less than half the number of daily shots as the peak of the campaign.
We're picking up the speed for third doses, but not first doses for children — but there are a heck of a lot more third doses to be delivered, so that *pace* is going slower.
(are these two charts helpful? i'm still on the fence for these two)
Let's wrap up with hospitalizations and deaths, and where are baseline is.
Deaths, at 2.29 a day, are at their lowest level since September 1.
We'll get a good sense of where this might go from other jurisdictions over the next week.
oh no i tweeted 11 charts today
promise that won't be the case every day.
But let's wrap our heads around what the next couple weeks will look like, and how during that time we'll get a much better sense of where we're heading.
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow.
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ALL-TIME DAILY RECORD of 1,308 #COVID19 cases announced for B.C. today, as the rolling average surges 114% in a single week.
Active cases up by about 1,000 to 6,348, hospitalizations up 7 to 192, and one new death.
Today's chart.
up up and away
525 new cases in Vancouver Coastal Health alone today, as the numbers keep going up and up in the Lower Mainland...but Vancouver Island starting to show some real exponential signs as well
As we await the B.C. government's announcement today on expected new #COVID19 restrictions, and consider personal risk assessment in the days ahead, let's do a little thought experiment about cases, hospitalizations, and forecasts.
I'll try and keep it brief!
I find comparisons for B.C. to Norway and Denmark fairly useful.
Why?
They've have had relative success in keeping deaths low, they've avoided massive waves, they have similar vaccine uptake and population size to us.
And they're a week or two ahead on the Omicron curve.
Denmark has more than 10,000 cases a day now.
Norway, more than 5,000.
This doesn't automatically mean British Columbia is going to reach those heights.
But it's a useful proxy for what people should wrap their heads around as a possibility.
It's been three weeks since we did this last, and over that time we've see fairly consistent downward transmission.
The rolling average is now half of what it was at the peak of the 4th wave, active cases down by half as well, hospitalizations down 35%.
For a while, the very depressing and frustrating caveat was that deaths were not following suit, but they are now down to about 4 a day after several weeks of 6-8.
(Put a grimmer way, we're now only seeing three times the per capita deaths of Ontario, instead of 6-7)
Here's a story on how flood management in B.C. is left up to municipalities without any regional coordination, and how virtually nobody who has studied the issue thinks it's a good strategy
And here's a story on the state of dikes in southwest B.C., how they're old and in need of upgrades, and how the path forward before this month was murky at best.