The North Shore has posted a new record for weekly confirmed cases of COVID-19, but the numbers come with a major caveat – only limited numbers of people have been able to receive the official PCR tests.
Between Dec. 23 and 29, North Vancouver added 509 new cases and West Vancouver/Bowen Island confirmed 153 – a new weekly record of 662. The previous record was set the week before at 534.
That works out to about 48 and 42 COVID-positive residents per 100,000 in each community, respectively.
Since the hyper-infectious Omicron variant gained a foothold in B.C., new case counts have been consistently breaking previous records, however, with hours-long line-ups, testing site closures and prioritizing of seniors and people at high risk of complications, many have been sent home with rapid tests. It’s not clear how people with positive rapid tests are being included in the daily tallies now.
In her remarks to the public last week, Dr. Bonnie Henry said the number of new infections is probably four to five times higher than those officially being recorded.
Of the people who did manage to get tested, 25 per cent were positive in North Vancouver in the last week. The positivity rate in West Vancouver/Bowen Island was 28 per cent.
Officials have not yet seen a major spike in hospitalizations in the fifth wave, and Henry announced Friday that the province would only require infected people to stay in isolation for five days if they are double vaccinated and if their symptoms have subsided. Unvaccinated cases will still have to isolate for 10 days.
As of Friday morning, the Lloyd Avenue test site in North Vancouver was posting average wait times of one hour and 45 minutes.
