Covid Update July 16, 2021

Anastasia Avvakumovah/ CKTZ News - There are currently four confirmed active cases of COVID-19 on North Vancouver Island, at least three of them situated in the Greater Campbell River region.

British Columbia government’s news channels reported a total of 29 cases in the Vancouver Island Health Authority by the afternoon of Thursday July 15. Of these, one is known to be in critical care and two are hospitalized; others are recovering in self-isolation.

In an effort to track the COVID-19 variants of concern (VoC), which are responsible for a large proportion of new infections across the province, the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) states that, “B.C. has transitioned to whole-genome sequencing on all positive cases to provide gold-standard analysis to detect variants of concern and fingerprint details to support outbreak responses.” Approximately 14% of the positive cases in BC are of the Delta variant, which originated in India and has become a predominant and fast-spreading variant of the virus in several countries, including the UK. However, Alpha and Gamma variants continue to account for the largest numbers of cases in BC, at 25% and 40% of sequenced positive specimens, respectively.

The government is also monitoring what is called “vaccine breakthrough cases.” These are cases of COVID-19 infection in people who have been fully vaccinated. Some of these individuals may also have asymptomatic infections. Yet the above-mentioned Delta variant has been shown to cause cold-like symptoms such as a headache and runny nose even in some individuals who have received both doses of the vaccine. Research is ongoing.

As of July 15, “79.4% (3,681,088 3.7 mill) of eligible people 12 and older in B.C. have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 48.6% (2,253,818) 2.3 mill received their second dose.” The numbers for immunizations in eligible British Columbia adults is 80.5% and 51.9% for their first and second dose, respectively.

In a summary released on July 2, the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) was reporting optimistically that “case rates are low and continue to decline in all health authorities, now approaching levels last observed in August 2020; test positivity continues to decline, ~1% provincially.”

Cumulative cases for Greater Campbell River for the period of January 2020 to June 2021 were officially reported as 199; the three new infections added in July so far put the total-to-date at 202. Within the Vancouver Island Health Authority, the total-to-date of all reported cases of COVID-19 is 5,184 with a recovery rate of 98.8%.

Photo credit: Local Health Area map of COVID 19 cases during the epi-week ending on Saturday July 10, 2021. Cases remain active for 14 days - map courtesy BC Centre for Disease Control