BC recorded 33 deaths from COVID-19 in the week ending Aug. 20, according to government data released today. Although this is the highest number since June 16, 10 weeks ago, government data can be unreliable. The province has raised its total number of deaths from COVID-19 to 4,097, after the first death was recorded in March 2020, in North Vancouver. That number is up 60 from the previous week, despite 33 new deaths. On August 18, the province said there were 24 new deaths in the week to August 13, bringing the total to 4,037. The data on new deaths from COVID-19 includes anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 within 30 days and then died — a calculation that could include people who tested positive and then died in traffic accidents. Glacier Media has asked the Ministry of Health why the death toll continues to rise more than the number of new deaths, but has not received a satisfactory explanation. The ministry’s most recent response was that the data “may be incomplete,” but there was never any update on the previously announced weekly death totals. In April, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said she was changing the process for counting deaths and that the new process would include all deaths involving people infected with COVID-19 in weekly updates and the total number of deaths. He said the province’s Vital Statistics Agency will then determine that some deaths were not due to COVID-19 and will subtract those deaths from the total death toll. The continued increase in the death toll exceeding the number of new deaths is exactly the opposite of what Henry said would happen. The most recent number of people hospitalized to date who have tested positive for COVID-19 is 331. This is down from the 366 people who were found in the hospital a week ago on August 18. The government has said it updates these numbers once a week, but in each of the past two weeks it has dropped an additional update after first providing the weekly numbers. Earlier today, the government’s COVID-19 dashboard showed there were 390 people in hospitals on August 18, so today’s tally would be an even bigger drop than a week ago. Of those now estimated to be hospitalized with COVID-19, 29 are in intensive care units (ICUs). That’s up from the 22 patients with COVID-19 initially estimated to be in those units on Aug. 18 and from the 24 patients with COVID-19 in the province’s updated tally for that day, which appeared sometime last week. The government announced today that 737 new infections were detected in the week ending August 20 – a decrease of 140 from the 877 known new infections in the week ending August 13. Data on new infections is widely rejected. Even Henry, earlier this year, called the data on new cases “inaccurate.” That’s because in December it began telling people who had been vaccinated and had mild symptoms not to get tested and to simply self-isolate. He said at the time that this was to increase testing capacity for those with more severe symptoms and those who are most vulnerable. Health officials conducted 15,604 tests for COVID-19, bringing the positive test rate to 4.72 percent, according to government data. This is the lowest rate since mid-June. The cumulative total of known infections in the province has risen to 381,788. •
