New Westminster's official COVID-19 case count is continuing its downward trend.
The city saw eight new officially recorded cases between Aug. 21 and 27, according to the latest data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. That's down from 10 the previous week.
As always, those numbers do not reflect the total number of actual COVID cases in the city. Official public case counts are considered to be a vast undercount of COVID-19 cases in B.C., since the majority of people have not been eligible for testing since the beginning of 2022 in the face of the original Omicron wave.
By comparison, however, local numbers still remain much lower than January — when equally few people were eligible for testing but the city still saw more than 200 cases in a week (216 between Jan. 9 and 15).
COVID-19 hospitalization data improving in B.C.
Provincewide, hospitalization data continues to show signs of improvement, with 306 people in hospital with COVID-19 as of today (Sept. 1), compared to 331 on Aug. 25. Of those now in hospital with the virus, 25 are in intensive care units (ICUs), down from 29 one week ago.
People are still dying while infected at a level higher than earlier this summer. In the week up to Aug. 27, 33 people are said to have died while infected. That is the same number as the week that ended Aug. 20, which was a 10-week high.
Hospitalization data is not available on a local level, so New Westminster-specific numbers are unavailable.
Where can I find B.C. COVID-19 data?
See the B.C. Centre for Disease Control reports for the latest variants of concern, local case maps, and vaccination data.
– with files from Glen Korstrom
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, [email protected]
