Thought of the Day - July 12 - By The Numbers

Recent news has been dominated by significant "second wave" outbreaks across the USA. This has overshadowed the fact we still have issues closer to home. Last week BC recorded the most deaths since May (10). It is also still the case that if you are diagnosed with COVID-19 you have a higher chance of dying here in BC than in the US. This is due to three factors:

• we are not diagnosing many mild cases - our Antigen testing rates are one of the lowest in Canada, and we have yet to start any kind of antibody testing - the numbers indicate we do not had a good handle on the true infection rates here;

• until now the US, by and large, seems to being a better job in protecting the most vulnerable;

• deaths usually lag cases by several weeks, thus the new rash of cases in the US actually masks their case fatality rates in the short term.

On the other hand here are some graphs from Heathdata.Org. They are doing a number of projections illustrating how different the picture between Canada and the US could be going forward as it is expected that their infection levels will continue to outpace Canada, and their hospital system in some regions are getting stretched.

Moreover, BC should continue to be an order of magnitude below the Canadian average.

For more links and graphs see the By The Number page: https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/the-numbers

Cheers

Cliff