Northern Health coming through the Omicron Wave

The COVID-19 positivity rate is dropping in Northern Health, after peaking at 31.2% in February.

Northern Health’s Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Jong Kim, says the health region was ‘lagging behind’ other regions when it came to the Omicron wave of the pandemic. He added the high positivity rate was not unusual.

“I think that during the wave, that level of positivity rate is not unusual, and Northern Health, compared to the Lower Mainland areas that had an early start of Omicron, they’re ahead of us in terms of getting it out of the way,” Kim said.

“We started late, and some of the variants from overseas, it started in areas in sort of around the international communities, and then takes a little bit of time to get to other communities.”

Kim said a lot of the COVID-19 tests being done now are either self-tests or rapid tests, but the overall testing rate is decreasing.

“We’ve seen that, compared to a few weeks ago when we had more cases, Northern Health has seen a decrease in the number of testing requests and appointments, resulting in test confirmed case numbers decreasing,” Kim said.

Kim added the changes to the province’s testing guidelines are also resulting in a higher positivity rate.

“The PCR test that’s included in the reported case numbers and positivity rate, that’s generally being done more to the people who more likely have COVID-19, so the positivity rate might drop slower, but the overall case numbers are dropping, the indicator from the case numbers, testing demands, and other situation indicators are showing that Northern Health is behind the peak of the wave.”