There are now 426 people with COVID-19 in B.C. hospitals, up 57 from one week ago and the highest number since May 26, according to BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) data.
Of those, 34 are in intensive care units (ICUs), which is down by two from July 7.
COVID-19 deaths continue to accumulate, with 22 people listed as having died while infected with COVID-19 in the week up until July 9. That is down by two from the 24 deaths in the previous week. The death total includes anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 within 30 days and then died. That calculation may include people who tested positive and then died in car accidents.
Government data holds that 3,823 people have now died while infected with COVID-19 in B.C. That is up by 35 from one week ago despite only 22 new deaths being recorded.
The B.C. government's process is supposed to include all deaths that involved people infected with COVID-19 in the weekly death tally and the overall death toll and then at a future date to remove from the overall death toll the ones in which the province's Vital Statistics Agency determines that the death was not due to COVID-19
Instead of this, however, every week for months, the number of new deaths has been lower than the number of deaths added to the overall COVID-19 death toll.
BIV asked the Ministry of Health about the discrepancy but did not get an explanation. All the ministry would say is that the weekly death tally "may be incomplete."
The BCCDC detected 973 new COVID-19 infections in the week that ended July 9. That is up by 208 from one week earlier, and it raises the number of known COVID-19 infections in B.C. to 376,329 since the first case was detected in late January 2020.
Data for new infections, however, has long been widely dismissed, and even Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry earlier this year called the information "not accurate." This is because in December she started telling people who were vaccinated and had mild symptoms to not get tested and to simply self-isolate. She said at the time that this was to increase testing capacity for those with more serious symptoms and those who are more vulnerable.
Testing is now only encouraged in cases where knowing the test result could change treatment recommendations.
The 12,302 COVID-19 tests conducted in B.C. in the week ended July 9 was up by 198 from one week earlier. Given that there were 973 new cases, the positive-test rate for the week was 7.9 per cent, up from 6.32 per cent one week earlier. •
