New Westminster's official COVID-19 case count has rebounded again after hitting a six-week low last week.
The city saw 18 new officially recorded cases between July 31 and Aug. 6, according to the latest data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
Last week, the count had hit 10, following a month of decline throughout July.
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, 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, critical care numbers fall B.C.
Hospitalization data, meanwhile, continues to improve.
Yesterday, the B.C. government initially updated its dashboard (just after 1 p.m.) to show that 398 people (down from 410 a week ago) were infected with the disease and in hospital, while 23 (down from 38 a week ago) were in intensive care units (ICU). That was the lowest number of COVID-19 patients in ICU since June 16, according to B.C. government statistics.
Later in the afternoon, the government again revised its weekly update to show that only 385 COVID-19 patients are in hospital, while 22 of those are in ICU.
It also notes 28 new COVID deaths in the week ending Aug. 6, the same as the week before.
Current hospitalization and death 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.
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, [email protected]
