All of Metro Vancouver is in the highest category of covid-19 cases per 100,000 population in the most recent maps released by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
B.C. saw its highest ever daily total of covid-19 cases today, with 165 people testing positive on Thursday. The province is not alone – the virus is surging in many other parts of the world, and continues to grow in the United States.
Covid-19 is exploding in India, where there are now more than 5 million cases. Given the enormous population of India, it is on a path to surpass the United States as the country with the most covid-19 cases in the world in the coming weeks. Countries across Europe are experiencing resurgences, with France and Spain reporting more than 10,000 new cases a day recently.
In B.C. this week, there were 833 new cases, or an average of 119 new cases per day, the latest B.C. Centre for Disease Control report. The most likely source of infection remains contact with a local case or cluster, with a large proportion of recent cases still pending exposure information, the report says. The median age of a person with covid-19 is now down to 38, where it was 55 earlier in the pandemic. There have now been 220 deaths in the province. Seventy-three of this week’s cases were in people under the age of 19.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix urge people to keep their social circles small.
“Spending time with different friends on different days significantly increases our personal risk and is a continued source of transmission in our province,” they said in a statement. “So, when planning our activities, whether is a play date for your kids, or a weekend dinner party, ask yourself if the people are part of your 'safe six'?”
Meanwhile, here are some of this week’s other developments.
- B.C.’s Metro Vancouver region was blanketed with thick smoke from massive wildfires burning south of the border. The unseasonably warm September temperatures cooled off by about 10 degrees once the smoke filled the skies. Dr. Bonnie Henry said schools should keep windows closed and people shouldn’t exercise outside.
- Isolation and loneliness are bad for our health, and people with dementia in long-term care homes are feeling the effects of covid-19 restrictions, the Globe and Mail reports.
- About 1.8 per cent of people who have covid-19 have strokes, a study in the journal Neurology found, the Globe and Mail reports. For young patients under 50, a stroke can sometimes be the first symptom of covid-19, the study found.
- An experimental drug that uses antibodies from people who have recovered from covid-19 shows promise in reducing hospitalizations, the New York Times reported.
- Ontario lowered the numbers of people allowed at gatherings to 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors.
- B.C.’s Finance Minister Carole James and Premier John Horgan released a pandemic financial plan. B.C.’s total provincial response is more than $8.25 million, a news release says. About 62 per cent of the jobs lost during the pandemic have been restored.
- The B.C. Centre for Disease Control now has a website to report all cases of covid-19 in schools. So far in B.C., there have been cases at schools in Delta, Surrey and Castlegar. So far there have been no outbreaks in schools.
- B.C. announced a new covid-19 gargle test for children in kindergarten through Grade 12 in the province. It’s a made-in-B.C. sample collection test that involves gargling instead of having a large Q-tip put up your nose. "Not only is the new method more comfortable for younger people, a B.C. company will provide the collection tube, reducing the province's dependency on the global supply chain for this sample method,” Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a statement.
With each passing week we get closer to flu season. B.C. is trending in the wrong direction, but still has low numbers of hospitalizations. Let’s hope we can hold that line.
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