British Columbia health officials are reporting 42 new deaths linked to COVID-19 in their weekly update, while hospitalizations have fallen below 500 for the first time in weeks.
The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital was 473 on Thursday, according to the BC Centre of Disease Control’s public dashboard. That’s down from 540 people in hospital a week earlier. Of those patients, 42 were reported to be in critical care units.
Between May 15-21, 42 people were admitted to hospital with COVID. In the same period, 42 people died within 30 days of a COVID-19 test. There have been 370,559 COVID-19 cases and 3,002 deaths reported since the pandemic began.
The Ministry of Health says that the weekly number of deaths and hospital admissions are only preliminary, and subject to change.
In Island Health, 55 people are currently in hospital with five in critical care.
B.C. does not have a way for people to report rapid test results and does not include rapid test results in COVID updates.
Currently, only immunocompromised people, people with high-risk conditions, people 70 or older, people who aren’t fully vaccinated, or people whose medical care may be affected by a positive result are eligible for PCR tests.
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