New COVID-19 infections in Burnaby saw an increase during the past week, according to government data.
The BC Centre for Disease Control's (BCCDC) Graphic Distribution of COVID-19 by Local Health Area of Case Residence says Burnaby recorded 45 cases from July 24 to 30.
The city saw 30 cases from July 17 to 23.
While most data metrics to track the COVID-19 pandemic in B.C. have been relatively flat in the past month, there are more patients in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) today than at any time in the past two months.
Of 410 patients in B.C. hospitals who have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, 38 are sick enough to need extra care in ICUs. That compares with 401 COVID-19 patients in B.C. hospitals one week ago, with 35 of them in ICUs.
The last time there were this many COVID-19 patients in B.C. hospital ICUs was on June 2, when there were 41 such patients out of 421 in all hospital wards combined.
The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the province then sunk to a low of 273 in the weekly updates on June 23 and June 30, before rising into mid-July.
Data for new COVID-19 deaths includes anyone who tested positive for COVID-19 within 30 days and then died – a calculation that could include people who tested positive and then died in car accidents.
Nonetheless, the province's data holds that there were 28 new COVID-19 deaths in the week that ended July 30. In the previous three weeks, the province's data holds that there were 29, 21 and 22 COVID-19 deaths respectively.
The BCCDC detected 983 new COVID-19 infections in the week that ended July 30. That is up by 62 from the 921 new cases reported one week earlier, and it raises the number of known COVID-19 infections in B.C. to 379,274 since the first case was detected in late January 2020.
The 14,324 COVID-19 tests conducted in B.C. in the week ended July 30 was up by 1,118 from one week earlier. Given that there were 983 known new cases, the positive-test rate for the week was 6.86 per cent, down from 6.97 per cent one week earlier.
- with files from Glen Korstrom, Business In Vancouver
