B.C. confirms 24 cases of new COVID-19 subvariant spreading in U.S. | CBC News

British Columbia has confirmed 24 cases of the new Omicron subvariant known as XBB 1.5 (or Kraken) to date, making up roughly five to six per cent of all genome-sequenced samples in the province.

Health Minister Adrian Dix and Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry provided the update during a news conference on Friday afternoon.

Henry said the remaining 95 per cent of sequenced samples in B.C. are still another Omicron offspring known as BQ.1.1 — meaning XBB 1.5 (or “Kraken”) is far from the dominant strain in the province.

CBC News is livestreaming the officials’ remarks.

The briefing comes the day after the B.C. Centre for Disease Control released data showing the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 continues to slowly decline, with just over 300 people currently in hospital.

The data also showed an overall decrease in the number of COVID-19 deaths over the past two months, with 34 fatalities during the last week of 2022.

The centre said the influenza epidemic is also declining, and no more children have died from the flu, but test positivity rates remain high for RSV.

Still, Dix said last week the province expected some “very challenging weeks for our health-care system” as a delayed result of more people having gathered in person last month for the holidays.

The XBB 1.5 subvariant has been spreading rapidly in the U.S. and was projected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to soon account for about 45 per cent of COVID-19 cases in that country.

For cases in B.C., hospitalizations and wastewater testing are a better metric for monitoring the extent of the disease’s impact as actual case numbers are likely higher than what the BCCDC is reporting.

Reported cases are based primarily on lab-confirmed PCR tests, which are currently inaccessible to the majority of British Columbians.

A total of 4,961 people in British Columbia are believed to have died of causes linked to COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The number of deaths, hospitalizations and reported cases can be revised retroactively, as the BCCDC and the provincial Health Ministry receive updated data from regional health authorities.