7th COVID wave has yet to hit Interior Health

Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 may be on the rise elsewhere, but an upward trend is not yet evident in the Interior Health region.

Twenty-five people with COVID-19 are now being treated in IH hospitals, according to information released Thursday by the BC Centre for Disease Control.

That’s down from 26 a week earlier, and down about 90% from the pandemic peak in early February.

Four of the 25 patients with COVID-19 in IH hospitals are being treated in critical care.

Across B.C., there are 273 patients with COVID-19, of whom 32 are in intensive care, down slightly from the 276 such hospitalizations in mid-June.

Seventeen more deaths due to the disease have been reported in the past week, for a total of 3,747 since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020.

In other jurisdictions, the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has been spreading rapidly, with an Ontario advisory group saying this week it likely makes up half of that province’s COVID19 cases.

On Thursday, Quebec joined Ontario in declaring it has officially entered a seventh wave of COVID-19. In Quebec, 1,534 people are hospitalized with the disease, a rise of 37 from Wednesday.

Officials in Ontario and Quebec have said they expect the current wave of infections to peak sometime this summer.

Last week, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended booster shots this fall in advance of a possible wave of COVID-19 infections. And Canada’s chief public health officer has urged people to catch up on their currently available vaccinations with the more transmissible Omicron variants now spreading.