Latest News

Richmond’s latest COVID-19 outbreak in long-term care was declared over today.

Richmond long-term care outbreak declared over

By Hannah Scott, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Published 5:26 PST, Fri January 14, 2022

—

The COVID-19 outbreak at Fraserview Retirement Community in Richmond has been declared over.

It was first declared on Jan. 2 after 10 residents tested positive for the virus. As of Jan. 11, there had been 34 cases (28 residents and six staff members) and one resident had died according to data from the B.C. Ministry of Health.

During a modelling presentation today, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said the hospitalization figures will be reported differently from now on, using census data. There are 646 COVID-positive people in hospital today, 95 of whom are in intensive care. The hospitalization number is a jump of 112 from yesterday, although the change in data means this was expected, Henry said.

“We need to know, is it because of COVID and Omicron that they’re being admitted, or is it an incidental finding, and then we need to have an understanding of how long this trajectory is going to go,” said Henry. “Because there is so much transmission in the community, we are now finding that people are incidentally testing positive.”

This means people admitted to hospital for other issues like surgery or labour and delivery are being screened with a COVID-19 test on admission, and those tests are coming back positive. Henry said these incidental COVID discoveries make up about 45 per cent of those hospitalized with a positive test, whereas about 50 per cent are admitted to hospital because of their COVID diagnosis.

Henry said in the last week (Jan. 6 to 12) there has been an increase in younger people needing hospital care: nine people aged zero to four, two aged five to 11, and two aged 12 to 17.

“A lot of people (have) been remarking on the fact that there’s more vaccinated people in hospital than unvaccinated people. But that number comes from a much, much bigger pool of people, so your risk of hospitalization is dramatically lower.”

Data show that the median length of hospital stay is about half as long, compared with Delta infections, and the need for critical care is down by about two-thirds. She added that new daily hospital admissions are likely to peak sometime in the next week.

Health officials reported 2,275 new cases of COVID-19 today. Since the pandemic began, B.C. has recorded 293,521 cases.

Of the new cases, 523 are in the Vancouver Coastal Health region (including Richmond), 813 in the Fraser Health region, 297 in the Island Health region, 412 in the Interior Health region, 227 in the Northern Health region and three new cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

There are 35,943 active cases of COVID-19 in B.C.

To date, 9,962,096 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer Pediatric COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C.; 4,152,386 of those are second doses and 1,412,008 are third doses.

This means that 92.7 per cent of adults, 92.3 per cent of people aged 12 and older and 89.0 per cent of people aged five and older have received their first dose of a vaccine. In addition, 90.0 per cent of adults, 89.6 per cent of those aged 12 and older and 83.3 per cent of those aged five and older have received two doses; 32.6 per cent of adults and 30.5 per cent of those aged 12-plus have received three doses.

Sadly, there were six new virus-related deaths reported today, bringing that total to 2,468. Of those who died, three lived in the Fraser Health region, one in the Island Health region and two in the Interior Health region.

Health authorities reported one new health-care facility outbreak and declared eight over. Active outbreaks continue at 35 long-term care facilities, one assisted or independent living facility and ten acute care facilities.

From Jan. 6 to 12, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 21.5 per cent of cases.
From Dec. 30 to Jan. 12, they accounted for 34.2 per cent of hospitalizations.

Past week cases (Jan. 6 to 12)—Total 17,304

• Not vaccinated: 3,105 (17.9 per cent)

• Partially vaccinated: 630 (3.6 per cent)

• Fully vaccinated: 13,569 (78.5 per cent)

Past two weeks cases hospitalized (Dec. 30 to Jan. 12)—Total 750

• Not vaccinated: 221 (29.5 per cent)

• Partially vaccinated: 35 (4.7 per cent)

• Fully vaccinated: 494 (65.8 per cent)

Past week, cases per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Jan. 6 to 12)

• Not vaccinated: 453.5

• Partially vaccinated: 197.7

• Fully vaccinated: 396.9

Past two weeks, cases hospitalized per 100,000 population after adjusting for age (Dec. 30 to Jan. 12)

• Not vaccinated: 53.8

• Partially vaccinated: 26.9

• Fully vaccinated: 10.6

For the latest medical updates, including case counts, prevention, risks and to find a testing centre near you: http://www.bccdc.ca/ or follow @CDCofBC on Twitter.