"We are at the highest level of people that we've had in hospital in this whole pandemic."
That's B.C.'s top health officer commenting on a grim milestone in the province's fight against the Omicron coronavirus variant.
On Monday (Jan. 31), B.C. reported over 1,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals for the first time. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry addressed the staggering figure in a press briefing Tuesday, noting that hospitalizations are a "lagging indicator" in the pandemic because community transmissions occur before they translate into hospital admissions.
"And this is what we are experiencing at the moment," she said.
In the week ending on Jan. 30, 706 people were admitted to the hospital in the province. Most hospitalizations were caused by Omicron infections but some people were admitted with Delta infections, Henry said.
Patients with Omicron stayed in the hospital for roughly half the time they did with Delta infections, she noted. "And so that does mean that people who have been admitted in December or January are still in hospital and many more of those people would be from Delta."
The health officer added that many people are admitted to the hospital for a reason unrelated to COVID-19 and test positive for the virus while in care.
"So they're admitted for another reason and they either acquired in hospital or somebody is screened or tested with either very mild illness or because they've been screened on admission," she explained. "So it's not COVID that's driving them to [the] hospital."
While people who went to the hospital with a Delta infection were primarily admitted because of COVID-19, many Omicron patients were asymptomatic and tested positive in the hospital.
"And we can see that about 60 per cent of admissions that were related to Omicron were not because of the infection, but people who are were admitted and tested and found to have a positive test," she said.
When asked if people were contracting Omicron in hospital from other patients, Henry said that there have been acute care outbreaks where someone who was unknown to have the virus has caused transmission. However, she underscored that there has "been no known transmission from a known COVID positive person being in placed in a room or ward with other vaccinated low-risk people."
B.C. health officials say the current coronavirus-related restrictions could ease by mid-February, despite the record number of hospitalizations from the virus reported this week.
While hospitalizations spiked to an all-time high this month in B.C., the rates per capita are significantly lower than in other provinces across the country. Deaths have also increased in B.C. but are significantly lower than in other provinces.
