Thought of the Day - March 7 - By the Numbers

Globally the number of new COVID daily cases remains fairly flat. The southeast Asian countries, who got serious about eliminating SARS-CoV-2 after their first waves, are still doing very well with almost no cases.

Not so much in the rest of the world. South America and Europe have been seeing per capita case rates rise slightly overall. North American rates are coming down, driven by the continued decline in the US (the increase a week ago in the US was the correction of some cumulative reporting errors) albeit more slowly now; that said, rates in the US are still more than double what we are seeing in Canada.

Overall Canada remained fairly flat this past week as the effect of the new variants hangs in balance with the subsidence of the second wave.

There are some notable exceptions, and BC is the main one. We are now giving Sasktechwan a run for top spot per capita, and I suspect next week we will be leading the country in cases per capital as our third-wave commences.

The number of variants of concern here in BC continues to climb. Of the new cases, 46 were identified as variants, bringing B.C.'s total to 246. The province having difficulty identifying the chain of transmission for 25% of their variant cases.

More worrying hospitalizations, that have declined little since the beginning of the year, are on the rise once again. The good news is critical care numbers while still fairly high have not yet seen any increase.

And deaths continue to plummet. While vaccinations are only part of the picture, the fact that many of the most vulnerable have now had a vaccine is having benefits.

The active case numbers in Burnaby continue to grow, according to the latest data from the BC Centre for Disease Control, the city is hitting its highest mark since late 2020.

An outbreak that started in February continues at the SFU Childcare Society, Burnaby’s biggest daycare up on Burnaby Mountain, with at least 28 cases reported. The good news is these do not seem to include any link with variant strains. Instead, rumour has it that the Burnaby outbreak is believed to be linked to a trivia night at the St. James’s Well pub in Port Moody!

This week's shout-out goes back once again to the Atlantic Provinces, after a few tense weeks NFLD seems to be on top of their variant outbreak, and despite a few cases in PEI, discussion about restarting the Atlantic-bubble has restarted with a potential target date of the end of June.

Cheers

Cliff