COVID-19 cases at UBC remain stable, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control’s (BCCDC) publicly-released data.
From November 16 to 22, the UBC neighbourhood — roughly west of Blanca — saw an average of two daily cases per 100,000 residents. This is a slight increase from last week’s one daily case per 100,000 residents. Test positivity sits at one per cent.
Vaccination rates remain extremely high at UBC, although some of the data is skewed due to out-of-town students getting vaccinated once they arrived in Vancouver.
The BCCDC is reporting 97 per cent first dose vaccination coverage for those 12+ in the neighbourhood. This figure does not include commuter students. Second dose vaccination coverage is reportedly at 96 per cent.
Data released by the BCCDC is not all the data the province has on UBC’s COVID-19 cases. Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) said it has a COVID-19 dashboard for UBC students, faculty and staff, but it has declined to release it publicly.
Testing is fairly inaccessible from campus — the closest symptomatic COVID-19 testing centre is downtown. Asymptomatic testing is required for those who are unvaccinated, partially vaccinated or declined to disclose their vaccination status to the university, but the clinical study asymptomatic testing option closed recently for an unspecified reason. Some students have turned to the UBC Urgent Care for testing, although it is not an approved testing site.
BC saw 324 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, but only 38 of those cases were in VCH. VCH has a total of 472 active cases. The province is planning to begin vaccinating children 5–11 next week.