Weekly B.C. COVID-19 data for March 30: Number in hospital jumps to nearly 300

Another 19 people died across the province after a recent positive test for COVID-19 in the latest weekly report from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.

There were 294 people in hospital on Thursday, a jump of 44 over a week earlier; 19 of them were in the intensive care unit, an increase of five.

The 19 reported deaths represent all those who had a positive PCR test for COVID-19 in the 30 days before they died, and is the number for the week ending March 25. Those weekly numbers are preliminary and usually rise in subsequent weeks as more data come in.

For instance, last week’s report from the B.C. CDC listed 20 deaths involving COVID-19; this week, those numbers have been revised upward to 30.

But according to data collected since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 turns out to be the underlying cause of death in slightly less than half of cases. It may have been a contributing factor in others but wasn’t determined to be the leading cause.