I m monitoring for a number of things: fewer cases in our community, fewer outbreaks, or unchecked transmission in places around the province – these are important signs that we are ready [to loosen health restrictions]. Also having a better understanding of where the variants of concern are, and how they re getting into our community. B.C. now has 241 people with infections serious enough to be in hospital. That is up by seven from yesterday, and it includes 68 people whose ailments are serious enough to be in intensive care units. The province has a total of 4,393 people actively battling infections – up 417 overnight.
Health Minister Adrian Dix told media that when new hospital beds that the province has added during the pandemic are taken into consideration, B.C. s hospital occupancy rate is 70.4%. When new ICU beds are taken into consideration, the province s ICUs are at 52% occupancy. The number of people known to be carrying the virus in B.C. has also been on the decline. There are now 3,976 people who have been infected and have not yet tested negative multiple times, which is the process for considering people as having recovered. That is the lowest total since November 6, when there were 3,741 people with active infections. Given that B.C. had a record 10,039 people with active infections on December 14, that metric has fallen considerably.
The recent trend of fewer people in B.C. being hospitalized with COVID-19 complications continued on February 5, with the province now having 253 individuals in those institutions – four . . .
Another six British Columbians have died overnight from complications related to the COVID-19 virus, bringing the province s death toll from the pandemic to 1,240, according to Ministry of Health . . .
Another 16 people died from the virus overnight. That is twice as many as yesterday, and it raises the province s death toll from the virus to 1,234, since the first death was recorded in the province on March 9, 2020. With 414 new infections, there have been a total of 68,780 cases of COVID-19 in the province since the first case was detected on January 28, 2020. More than 89.6% of those people, or 61,643, are listed as having recovered because they have had two consecutive negative tests. There are 4,426 people who are actively battling infections. The data fails to account for 1,477 people, out of the 68,780 total who are listed as having been infected, and health officials have told Glacier Media that the most likely reason for this is the individuals left the province without updating authorities on their status.