Politics, resources, or policy? Why B.C. may be dramatically underreporting COVID-19 deaths
CTV
As a fall wave of the pandemic appears to be building, infectious disease experts are warning B.C.'s risk is high and the government-reported number of COVID-19 deaths is misleading.
As a fall wave of the pandemic appears to be building, infectious disease experts are warning B.C.’s risk is high and the government-reported number of COVID-19 deaths is misleading.
The fine print on the B.C. Centre for Disease Control’s weekly COVID-19 Situation Report reads that as of April, the province is only including deaths that occurred "within 30 days of their first positive COVID-19 lab result date."
Sarah Otto, a UBC biomathematics professor and core member of the B.C. COVID-19 Modelling Group said she’s had confirmation that if someone had a lab-confirmed case of COVID-19 in August 2020, got sick again in August of this year and was hospitalized, tested positive and died from the virus, that person would not be counted, since it was well in excess of 30 days since their first positive test.
“I think it's really important that we don’t just say, 'Oh, you're re-infected, you don't count in our hospital admissions, you don't count in our deaths,’” said Otto. “Of course, if people are dying from COVID-19, we want to know that. We want to know what the total death rate is from this disease.”
The 30-day reporting change has been criticized as potentially leading to an over-count of COVID-19 deaths, since someone who tested positive but died for another reason, like a car crash or terminal illness, would count. But Dr. Bonnie Henry has clarified that even hospitalized patients with symptoms are only tested for the virus if it would changed their course of treatment.
A Canada-wide “COVID-19 Hazard Index” run by a collection of academics, researchers, data scientists and others, rates B.C. as “severe” with a score of 9 out of 10, whereas the national rating is 7.
Last year, a study by the Royal Society of Canada found the province’s death toll could be double what was reported, since B.C. has an exceptionally high excess mortality rate – that is, more deaths than would typically happen without a specified cause, like a mass disaster.
