B.C. reports 82 more people in hospital with COVID-19, 2 more in the ICU and 7 additional deaths over 3 days

B.C. health officials say 431 people are now in hospital with COVID-19, including 95 in intensive care, as the province reported Monday seven more deaths from the disease and 6,966 new cases.

The new numbers represent an increaseof 82 COVID-19 patients hospitalized over the last three days, including two morepatients in the ICU.

Overall hospitalizations, which typically lag behind spikes and dips in new cases, are upby 44.6per cent from last Tuesday, when 298people were in hospital with the disease. Hospitalizations have more than doubledcompared to a month ago when 211people were in hospital.

Experts say hospitalizations area more accurate barometer of the disease's impact,as new case numbersin B.C. arelikely much higherthan reported, now that the province has hitits testing limit because of the Omicron surge.

The number of patients in intensive care is upby about 10.4per cent from 86 a week ago and upby 31.9 per cent from a month ago when 72people were in the ICU.

As of Monday, 23.8 per cent of COVID-19 tests in B.C. are coming back positive, according to the province's COVID-19 dashboard.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has said thatanything above a five per cent test- positivity rateindicates a concerning level of community transmission.

There are currently 34,551recorded active cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus in B.C.

The provincial death toll from COVID-19 is now 2,446 lives lost out of 283,841 confirmed cases to date.

There area total of 43 active outbreaks in assisted living, long-term, and acute care facilities. The province has declared seven new outbreaks at health-care facilities. Outbreaks at Guildford Seniors Village in Surrey and Victoria General Hospital have been declared over.

Outbreaksin acute care facilities are all currently in Fraser Health. They include:

• Mission Memorial Hospital
• Surrey Memorial Hospital
• Eagle Ridge Hospital
• Royal Columbian Hospital

As of Monday,88.7 per cent of those five and older in B.C. have received their first dose of aCOVID-19 vaccineand 83.2 per cent asecond dose.

From Dec. 31 to Jan. 6, people who were not fully vaccinated accounted for 17.8 per cent of cases and from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6,they accounted for 38.8 per cent of hospitalizations, according to the province.

A total of 1.19 million people have received a booster shot to date.

Students return to school

As K-12 students in B.C. return to school after an extended winter break, the provincial health officer says health officials willcontinueto work closely with schools as they try to keep students safe from COVID-19.

"We'll be looking at when there's absenteeism relatedto illness and working with the schools to be able to determine if that's because of COVID or not," Bonnie Henry said on CBC's The Early Edition. "What we are looking at is abaseline of about a 10 per cent increase in illness related to absenteeism triggering an investigation."

She said because the Omicron variant is more transmissible, health officials are unable to follow every individual case and conduct contract tracing, but rapid tests and enhanced safety measures like virtual assemblies will help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

"What we know about the spread of COVID is that it's unlikely to be spread in the schools," Henry said. "So the absenteeism helps us understand what's happening in the community because we know that it reflects what's happening in schools."

During the winter break, the B.C. Teachers Federation called on the province to do more to make sure studentsand staff are safe includingprioritizingbooster shots and providing N95 masks.