FILE PHOTO - Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry speaks at media briefing on COVID-19 in Victoria, Oct. 14, 2021.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Province of B.C.

It’s clear from comments made by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry today that we are probably close to the end of the COVID pandemic.

“We think that we hit the peak of community transmission in British Columbia, probably this past weekend,” she said during a news briefing today, Jan. 14.

“We’ve seen such a dramatic change in the virus with Omicron and such a dramatic spread that we now have a level of combination immunity from Omicron but also from vaccination that I do think this is a step closer to the virus becoming endemic in our community over time," she said.

The data she has been providing for almost two years to catalogue the spread of the pandemic are no longer relevant.

Up until very recently, the daily count of new COVID cases was a key measure of the intensity of the pandemic. Those counts are still broken down by individual communities and Local Health Areas once a week.

They are based on PCR tests but the province’s capacity to conduct those tests was overwhelmed by Omicron because so many people took rapid tests with no recording of data to health authorities or they just stayed home when they had symptoms and weren't tested.

It’s estimated the true number of COVID cases is three to four times higher than reported each day. That meant the rate of hospitalizations became the relevant metric to track. But that changed today.

Up until now, the province recorded as 'hospitalized' most people with a positive COVID test who were in hospital, even if they had no symptoms. It’s estimated 45% of those were people who had COVID incidentally – meaning they were in hospital for other reasons, were screened, and happened to have COVID.

They did not count those who were screened and tested positive as patients during a hospital outbreak. They also did not include people from outside of B.C.

That changed today so absolutely everyone with a positive COVID test who is in hospital is considered to be there because of COVID.

The record set yesterday of 534 people in hospital with COVID jumped to 646 today, just because the way the data is collected changed. As many as 45% of them aren’t there because of COVID.

Dr. Henry did promise to give weekly updates on what percentage of people in hospital with COVID are actually there because COVID made them sick enough to need hospitalizations.

Which doesn’t help members of the public following the course of the pandemic on a daily basis.

Another metric that might be of use is the daily record of those in intensive care units with COVID. That fell to 95 today from 102 yesterday but is below the record high of 178 in April.

Dr. Henry did not, however, say how many of those people got so sick from COVID needed to go into intensive care versus those who were in intensive care for other reasons and happened to have COVID.

Then there is the stark measure of the severity of the illness — the number of people who die from COVID.

Six more people died in the last 24 hours, including two in the Interior Health region, bringing the provincial total to 2,468.

That, again, is not necessarily a true figure because some of those who died may have died from other causes and just happened to have COVID so they were classified as COVID deaths.

READ MORE: How COVID-19 deaths are counted in B.C.

The data released today does shows that 2,275 B.C. residents had positive PCR tests for COVID in the last 24 hours, 412 of whom are in the Interior Health region.

Vaccination is a good way to ward off serious illness with COVID, although it doesn’t necessarily protect people from getting COVID, especially for those over the age of 70.

READ MORE: Omicron on downward trajectory in B.C. but not in Interior Health yet

The data on how many people have been vaccinated every day is posted.

Given the fact that more than four million B.C. residents have at least one dose of the vaccine, those rates change very slowly.

It took three days, for example, for those over the age of 12 with at least one dose to move from the 92.2% to 92.3% after 5,346 more people got their shot.

That rate stayed at 92.3% today. For those fully vaccinated, that rate climbed slightly to 89.6%, where it’s been since Tuesday. The one measure that does change more frequently is booster shots. That rate went to 30.5% today from 29.2% yesterday.

What all this means is, despite currently very high case and hospitalization rates, the COVID pandemic seems to be well on its way to being the COVID endemic, meaning it’s here to stay but is not much different than the common cold or flu.

“I think this spring we’re going to be in a different position, across Canada, across North America across much of Europe,” Dr. Henry said.

That doesn’t mean that COVID won’t be here for years to come but it may just be a seasonal ailment, like influenza.

“The caveat that we have is, this virus continues to change and modify itself and surprise us in many ways – persist as well,” Dr. Henry said. “Until, globally, we have that level of protection, we are still at risk of something else arising. We don’t yet know what the patterns are going to be of this virus circulating in our community. Is it going to be like other coronaviruses that eventually become another cause of the common cold for most people? Are we going to have more severe illness being caused in certain populations and which populations are they?”

It seems clear that, after a tough couple of weeks when hospitalizations increased and at a time when health-care workers were still calling in sick with COVID themselves, the worst may be over.

“I do think this is a real transition in our moving out of the pandemic and learning to live with this virus,” Dr. Henry said. “If we make it to Easter, I think we’re going to be in a really different place. I think we will be able to put aside some of the things we’ve had to do on a regular basis.”

That may mean the easing of increased health-care restrictions that were put in place in December and even the end to mask wearing in many circumstances.

The latest restrictions are in place until next Tuesday, Jan. 18.

Dr. Henry steadfastly refused to hint at whether those will be eased or removed despite repeated questions from reporters.

“It’s going to be a transition,” was the closest she came to playing her hand. “It’s not going to be an abrupt change. I think a transition as, hopefully, this virus will settle down in our communities over the next little while.”

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