Interior Health watching hospital capacity closely as COVID-19 cases increase province-wide

KAMLOOPS — Interior Health says transmission of COVID-19 is happening in a variety of environments.

Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Albert de Villiers says COVID-19 is being spread in the Interior in households, at backyard barbecues and among those not following provincial guidelines.

De Villiers says there have not been significant workplace or restaurant exposures. He notes younger people are getting the virus.

“Because immunization rates, specifically in long term care, but also people over the age of 65-to-70 who have been vaccinated, the infection rate is definitely coming down in that specific group,” de Villiers said. “We have seen that because those people have been vaccinated, so they’re protected, we do see younger people getting infected now. I know there’s been questions about the variants specifically as well and yes, we have seen more variants and more amongst younger people.”

Across the province, hospitalizations have been going up. In the Interior, hospitalizations are below what they were at the peak of the second wave, but IH is watching those levels carefully.

“I know in December, January when we were at one of our peaks back then, we were averaging I think about 50 people hospitalized,” de Villiers said. “We are at about half that currently. So, it is definitely going better. I’m saying it cautiously optimistic because we know we sometimes follow a few weeks after Fraser (Health Authority), so we might see it going up, but at this stage we are definitely within our capacity. We will be able to deal with everything.”