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COVID-19 hospitalizations are starting to stretch the capacities of some hospitals in Metro Vancouver as infection cases continue at high levels and more-transmissible virus variants surge.
B.C. health officials have noted there are particular concerns at Vancouver General, Lions Gate and Surrey Memorial hospitals, with bed occupancy close to 100 per cent.
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Try refreshing your browser, or COVID-19: Variant surge pushing hospitalizations in B.C. to near record levels Back to video
On Tuesday, B.C. reported 377 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, up from 368 on Monday. Of those, 116 were in intensive care, down from 121 on Monday, but still 30 per cent of all hospitalizations.
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Provincial hospitals are prepared to receive higher numbers of COVID-19 patients, Health Minister Adrian Dix said Wednesday, not that he is comfortable with the situation.
“We’re both prepared for it and very concerned about it,” Dix said, considering that B.C.’s experience is that five per cent of people who contract COVID-19 wind up in hospital. “Obviously, if we keep seeing high case loads, it’s just by definition, five per cent of 1,000 (cases in a day) is more than five per cent of 750, so we’ve got to be prepared and we will be prepared for more hospitalizations.”
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Dr. Gerald Da Roza says its discouraging to watch Royal Columbian Hospital’s intensive care unit filling with younger, sicker COVID-19 patients just as vaccination programs ramp up.
“Before the variant part hit, I think a lot of us were on an upswing in terms of our optimism, you know we were turning the corner,” said Da Roza, head of medicine at Royal Columbian.
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VANCOUVER Provincial health officials defended their ongoing strategy for dealing with COVID-19 infections, despite worrying signs B.C.’s health-care system is increasingly coming under strain as new variants of the disease grow in numbers. On Tuesday, the provincial health officer announced 207 of the day’s 1,072 cases had officially tested positive as variants of concern. It came on the heels of Royal Columbian Hospital revealing its intensive care unit is overflowing with coronavirus patients. “Our medical floor has as many COVID patients as we’ve seen in the past year, so we’ve had to expand our cohort and we’re running at capacity issues where sometimes we don’t quite have space then to fit in them all in our traditional ICU and HAU. Therefore they sometimes have to wait in emerg. or we use other areas of the hospital to try to take care after critically ill patients,” said Dr. Gerald Da Roza, head of medicine at the hospital in New Westminster.