With British Columbia's COVID-19 testing system swamped, doctors and modelling experts say the province is flying blind into a crisis for its health-care system.
The true daily case total is likely three to four times more the nearly 3,000 cases reported on average each day, according to new modelling from the BC COVID-19 Modelling Group, a collective of academics and experts in disease modelling and epidemiology who provide analysis of B.C.'s pandemic situation.
And all aspects of B.C.'s pandemic response are hampered by the lack of reliable data on case numbers, giving the Omicron variant even more opportunity to spread, said one doctor.
“The health-care system is going to be overrun, and the question now is timing, and how overrun it will be,” said Dr. Lyne Filiatrault, a former emergency physician who helped avert the SARS epidemic in Vancouver. “We are completely flying blind.”
As the dominant Omicron variant doubles at least every 3.6 days, new analysis from the group of independent modellers and experts predicts between 2,000 to 10,000 people could be hospitalized at a late January peak.
B.C.'s previous hospitalization record was 515 patients in April 2021.
(CTV News)