A new statistic has emerged that shows the reach of COVID-19 goes well beyond those who test positive.
The new stat refers to how many people are in “isolation” for 14 days after contracting COVID-19 or being exposed to it.
For months, there were fewer than 1,000 people in isolation at any one time. In the space of a week, that number more than doubled.
About three-quarters of these people are in isolation because someone in their family or social or work circles exposed them to the virus. That means there is a growing number of people off work and/or cut off from friends and their community – often through no fault of their own.
Last week’s column was about how our pandemic’s demographics had shifted and that younger people were now picking up the virus in greater numbers than older people.
The sudden explosion in the number of people in isolation is also likely the result of younger people who have the virus exposing more people to it than an older segment of the population because they are generally more socially active and have more personal contacts.
Just when it appeared that B.C. had successfully “bent the curve” when it came to containing the spread of COVID-19, the statistics during the past two weeks have been discouraging.
After averaging about 10 cases a day about a month ago, the daily average as of this column’s writing has been more than 80. And those in isolation continue to climb in number.
However, in a glass-half-full sort of way, three other key statistics continue to offer hope. Thankfully, we have not seen a spike in hospitalizations, critical care cases or deaths.
Since the pandemic was declared, we have had fewer than 600 people in hospital so far. And fewer than 200 people were placed in the ICU.
At our worst point, there were 149 people in the hospital and 72 of them were in the ICU. We have come a long way from those grim days, but we can easily go backwards if we do not do more when it comes to following public health rules and guidelines.
Stop the partying everyone. We do not need more and more people put into isolation, cut off from their everyday world.
The “modelling” of B.C.’s COVID-19 situation that was presented by Dr. Bonnie Henry last week included some of the results of that huge survey of the plight of individuals and families in this pandemic and they were eye opening.
Almost 400,000 British Columbians participated in it. the results showed people with lower incomes and those in some ethnic communities have had the worst experiences when it came to job loss, food scarcity and stress on their children.
Will that situation change in the months ahead? It seems unlikely, since our most vulnerable always seem to pay a heavier price in times of trouble.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.
