New Westminster has shattered its record for weekly COVID-19 cases.
BCCDC data show New Westminster had a total of 151 new coronavirus cases from April 4 to 10.
That’s well above the previous record of 103 cases from March 28 to April 3, according to the latest data from the BC Centre for Disease Control, and possibly the highest since the pandemic began as the BCCDC only started posting weekly city cases in winter 2020.
The number is well above the 85 cases between Jan. 24 and 30. New West had 95 cases from Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, 2020.
New West saw 78 cases from March 21 to 27 – up from the 63 cases between March 14 and 20, the 73 cases from March 7 to 13, the 67 new cases between Feb. 28 and March 6, and the 71 new coronavirus cases between Feb. 21 and 27 – the same number as Feb.14 and 20.
B.C.'s large third wave of COVID-19 cases contains a serious undertow, which is a surge in hospitalizations.
The province revealed a record 397 people are fighting for their lives in hospitals across the province, while 120 of those are in intensive care units. The record for the most people with COVID-19 in B.C. hospital ICUs is 121, set April 12.
The number of those actively battling infections rose by 65 overnight, to 9,821 people. The vast majority of those infected have been told to self-isolate.
Newly detected infections continue at a high rate, with 1,168 cases identified in the past 24 hours. That is the fourth highest daily total B.C. has seen.
The new cases raise the total number of COVID-19 infections in B.C. to 114,870, since researchers discovered the first infection in the province in January, 2020. Almost 90%, or 103,360 people, are deemed by the province to have recovered.
Glacier Media crunched B.C. data for the 2,041 infections in the past two days, to show the following age breakdown for those cases. The first percentage in brackets is for the last two days. The second percentage is for all cases identified before April 13:
• 146 were aged under 10 (7.2% | 4.9%);
• 255 were aged between 10 and 19 (12.5% | 10.1%);
• 461 were aged between 20 and 29 (22.6% | 22.8%);
• 346 were aged between 30 and 39 (17% | 18.3%);
• 322 were aged between 40 and 49 (15.8% | 14.8%);
• 253 were aged between 50 and 59 (12.4% | 12.7%);
• 151 were aged between 60 and 69 (7.4% | 8.2%);
• 81 were aged between 70 and 79 (4% | 4.4%);
• 23 were aged between 80 and 89 (1.1% | 2.6%); and
• 3 were older than 90 years (less than 0.1% | 1.2%).
There were 24 COVID-19 cases before April 13 in which the patients' ages were not known.
Health officials are monitoring a record 16,304 people for symptoms because they have had known exposure to individuals identified as having been infected.
Another six people have died while fighting COVID-19 infections in the past day, raising B.C.'s death toll from the disease to 1,521.
Here is the breakdown of where the 1,168 people with infections detected in the past day reside, by health region:
• 341 in Vancouver Coastal Health (29.2%);
• 632 in Fraser Health (54.1%);
• 64 in Island Health (5.5%);
• 105 in Interior Health (9%); and
• 26 in Northern Health (2.2%).
- With files from Glen Korstrom, Glacier Media
