The number of British Columbians suffering in hospital with COVID-19 infections has risen 54 per cent in the past week to 142 individuals, according to government data released November 10. That's the highest number since April 4, when there were a record 149 COVID-19 patients in B.C. hospitals.
Of those, 46 people are in intensive care units, the highest since April 22.
Three people died overnight from the virus, raising the death toll in the province from the disease to 284.
Health Minister Adrian Dix, on the weekend, said that the number of COVID-19 patients in B.C. hospitals is "well below our capacity," but he warned that "it reflects the severity of COVID-19 in our province."
The rise in hospitalizations might have been expected given that the number of new cases identified on a daily basis has soared into regularly being more than 500 people per day.
There were 525 new cases in the past 24 hours, for a total of 19,239 since the first case was detected in the province in late January. More than 71 per cent of those people, or 13,704, have recovered. A record 5,133 people are actively infected, and infectious. The vast majority of them are self-isolating at home.
Here is the breakdown of the new COVID-19 cases in B.C., by health region:
• 159 in Vancouver Coastal Health;
• 325 in Fraser Health;
• seven in Island Health;
• 27 in Interior Health;
• seven in Northern Health; and
• no new cases in people who reside outside Canada.
"We have two new health-care facility outbreaks at Holyrood Manor and Burnaby Hospital," provincial health officer Bonny Henry, and Dix said in a joint statement. "In total, 33 long-term care or assisted-living facilities and six acute-care facilities have active outbreaks."
The original story appeared here.
